Interviewing and Diagnostic Exercises for Clinical and Counseling Skills Building

This book, specifically designed to meet the needs of those teaching and learning interviewing and diagnostic skills in clinical, counseling and school psychology, counselor education, and other programs preparing mental health professionals, offers a rich array of practical, hands-on, class- and workshop-tested role-playing and didactic exercises.

The authors, who bring to their task a combined 31 years of practice and 24 years of teaching these skills, present 20 complex profiles of a broad range of clients--adults, teens, and children; differing in ethnicity, gender, religion, socioeconomic status, presenting problems, and problem severity. The profiles provide students/trainees with a wealth of information about each client's feelings, thoughts, actions, and relationship patterns on which to draw as they proceed through the different phases of the intake/initial interview, one playing the client and one the interviewer. Each client profile is followed by exercises, which can also be assigned to students not participating in role-playing who have simply read the profile.

The profiles are detailed enough to support a focus on whatever interviewing skills an instructor particularly values. However, the exercises highlight attending, asking open and closed questions, engaging in reflective listening, responding to nonverbal behavior, making empathetic comments, summarizing, redirecting, supportively confronting, and commenting on process. The authors' approach to DSM-IV diagnoses encourages students to develop their diagnostic choices from Axis I to Axis V and then thoughtfully review them in reverse order from Axis V to Axis I to ensure that the impacts of individual, situational, and biological factors are all accurately reflected in the final diagnoses. Throughout, the authors emphasize the importance of understanding diversity and respecting the client's perceptions--and of reflecting on the ways in which the interviewer's own identity influences both the process of interviewing and that of diagnosis.

Interviewing and Diagnostic Exercises for Clinical and Counseling Skills Building will be welcomed as a invaluable new resource by instructors, students, and trainees alike.

Contents: Preface for Instructors/Supervisors. Preface for Students/Trainees. Types of Interviewing Skills Indexed by Chapter: Table 1. Diagnosis Indexed by Chapter: Table 2. Conceptual Issues Indexed by Chapter: Table 3. Part I: Introduction. Interviewing Skills Hightlighted in the Text. Highlighted Diagnostic Practice. Part II: Adult Profiles for Use in Individual Sessions. Preface to Part II. Case of Monisha: Presenting Issues--College Adjustment, Academic Pressure. Case of Jie: Presenting Issues--School Performance, Culture. Case of Brenda: Issues--Parenting Young Children, Identity Shift. Case of Aaron: Presenting Issues--Hallucinations, Substance Abuse. Case of Mary: Presenting Issues--Depression, Anxiety. Case of Mark: Issues--Survival Guilt, Career Confusion. Case of Sarah: Issues--Husband With Alzheimer's Disease, Family Pressure. Case of David: Presenting Issues--Substance Abuse, Employment. Case of Lisa: Presenting Issues--Marital Difficulties, Life Changes. Case of Gary: Presenting Issues--Aggression, Substance Abuse. Part III: Child and Teen Profiles for Use in Individual Sessions. Preface to Part III. Case of Cynthia: Issues--Eating Disorder, Emerging Sexuality. Case of Jeffrey: Issues--Social Alienation, School Failure. Case of Melissa: Presenting Issues--Divorce, Shared Custody. Case of Edward: Presenting Issues--Single-Parent Family, Acculturation. Case of Raoul: Presenting Issues--Racial Prejudice, Substance Use. Case of Erica: Presenting Issues--Bereavement, Behavior Problems. Case of Joseph: Presenting Issues--Abandonment, Agression. Case of Sabina: Presenting Issues--Acculturation Conflicts, Emancipation. Case of Alex: Presenting Issues--Neglect, Behavior Problems. Case of Cathy: Presenting Issues--Sexual Abuse, Abandonment. Appendix:Interviewing Skills Worksheets.