Intentional Interviewing and
Counseling:
Facilitating Client Development in a
Multicultural Society
7th Edition
Allen E. Ivey
University of Massachusetts
Mary Bradford Ivey
Microtraining Associates
Carlos P. Zalaquett
University of South Florida
Copyright © 2009
Chapter 1
Toward
Intentional
Interviewing
and Counseling
Consider the following. We humans are social
beings. We come into the world as the result
of others' actions. We survive here in
dependence on others. Whether we like it or
not, there is hardly a moment of our lives
when we do not benefit from others' activities.
For this reason it is hardly surprising that
most of our happiness arises in the context of
our relationships with others.
The Dalai Lama
Chapter goals
▲ Identify key ideas of the microskills approach and show
how the step-by-step model of the microskills hierarchy
relates to broad concepts of interviewing, counseling,
and psychotherapy
▲ Infuse intentional interviewing to facilitate the drawing
out of client stories, enabling clients to find new ways of
thinking about these stories and new ways of acting.
Interviewers need to have multiple techniques for
responding to clients in a culturally sensitive fashion.
Competency objectives
▲Identify the similarities and differences among
interviewing, counseling, and psychotherapy.
▲Understand the step-by-step microskills framework for
mastering the interview.
▲Recognize the varying patterns of microskill usage
used with different theories of counseling and
psychotherapy.
▲Define intentionality, cultural intentionality, and
intentional competence.
Competency objectives
▲ Anticipate the impact of your comments on client
conversation through learning the basics of intentional
prediction.
▲ Outline and define the relationship—story and
strengths—goals—restory—action model of counseling
and therapy.
▲ Develop awareness of the impact of interviewing,
counseling, and psychotherapy on the brain.
▲ Examine your own natural helping style and use
personal expertise as a base for further development.
INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS THE “CORRECT”
RESPONSE TO OFFER A CLIENT?
I’m overwhelmed. My husband was let go in the
latest downsizing and is impossible to live with.
My job is going OK, but I worry about making the
next car payment. Our ancient washer broke,
flooded our basement, and ruined a box of family
photographs. Our daughter came home crying
because the kids are teasing her and my mother-inlaw is coming to visit next week. What should I
do?
INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS THE “CORRECT”
RESPONSE TO OFFER A CLIENT?
▲ Reflection Questions
 How would you respond?
 What would you say?
 Take a moment to think before reading on, and even
better, write down your response so that you can compare
it with what others might say.* You’ll probably find their
responses are different from yours.
▲ A key question is who made the “correct” response?
INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS THE “CORRECT”
RESPONSE TO OFFER A CLIENT?
▲ The answer, of course, is that there are many potentially
useful responses in any interviewing situation.
 Reflecting the client’s emotions can be helpful.
 Selecting one aspect to focus on can be useful.
 You even might sit silently and see what happens next.
INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS THE “CORRECT”
RESPONSE TO OFFER A CLIENT?
▲ Our goal is to expand your possibilities for responding to
people in need.
▲ Rather than “What is the correct response?” seek to
develop multiple possibilities for helping clients deal with
the world.
INTERVIEWING, COUNSELING, AND
PSYCHOTHERAPY
▲ There are many commonalities among interviewing,
counseling, and therapy.
▲ The terms counseling, interviewing, and psychotherapy
are often used interchangeably in this book.
▲ We will review them on-by-one.
Interviewing
▲ Basic process for gathering information, problem solving
and advice giving.
▲ Interviewers may be:
 Clinical, school, and career counselors, and school staff
 Clinical, counseling, and other psychologist’s specializations
 Social workers
 Medical personnel
 Business people
 Wide variety of helping professionals
Counseling
▲ Counseling is more intensive and personal than
interviewing.
▲ Counselors help people with normal problems /
opportunities.
▲ Counseling most often associated
Social work
School Counseling
Pastoral counseling
Psychology
Psychiatry, to a limited extent
Psychotherapy
▲ Psychotherapy is more intense than counseling.
▲ Focuses on deep-seated personality or behavioral
difficulties.
▲ Intentional interviewing skills are equally important for
effective psychotherapy.
Interrelationships
Clinical Mental Health Counseling
New terminology introduced in the field (CACREP 2009)
▲ Covers the same areas as shown in Figure 1.1
▲ Engages in psychotherapeutic practice.
▲ Demands competence in:
Interviewing
Counseling
Diagnosis
Treatment
THE CORE SKILLS OF THE HELPING
PROCESS: THE MICROSKILLS HIERARCHY
▲ Foundation of intentional interviewing
▲ Communication skill units of the interview
▲ Summarizes successive steps
▲ Provides different alternatives for use with different
clients and in different situations
THE CENTRAL SKILLS OF THE
HELPING PROCESS:
THE MICROSKILLS
HIERARCHY
▲ The microskills
hierarchy
summarizes the
successive steps
of intentional
interviewing.
▲ The skills rest on
a base of ethics,
multicultural
competence, and
wellness.
Microskills hierarchy
▲ Once you have mastered attending behavior, you will move up the
microskills pyramid to questioning, client observation, paraphrasing,
and other basic listening skills.
 These foundational skills are part of the practice of the most
experienced professional.
▲ Afterwards you will encounter action skills of interviewing,
counseling, and therapy.
 These are skills to help clients explore their personal or interpersonal
conflicts.
 They include confrontation, focusing, interpretation/reframing, reflection
of meaning, self disclosure, feedback, logical consequences,
information/psychosocial, and directives.
Microskills hierarchy
▲ Develop your own style of being with clients, but always
respect this grounding.
▲ With these skills you will learn how to structure a “wellformed interview.”
 You will be able to conduct a complete interview with a verbal
client using only listening skills.
Microskills hierarchy
▲ After mastering listening skills, the ability to conduct an
interview using only these skills, and the advanced skills,
you will be prepared to consider alternative theories and
models of helping.
▲ The microskills are used by different theories.
 For example, mastering the listening skills and the structure of
the interview will give you a strong foundation for learning
person-centered theory and become a competent Rogerian.
Microskills hierarchy
▲ At the apex of the microskills pyramid you will determine
your own theory and practice of counseling, interviewing,
and psychotherapy.
▲ As you gain expertise you will learn each client has a
totally unique response to you and your natural style.
 Many clients will work well with you; some will require that you
adapt to their style.
 Having many alternatives ready to help your varying clientele is
desirable.
Microskills
▲ Mastery of the microskills
 allows you to listen effectively and help clients change and grow
▲ Effective use of microskills
 enables you to anticipate or predict how clients respond to your
interventions
▲ Knowledge of the skills
 gives you flexibility
 If client does not respond as you expect, you can shift skills and strategies
that match their needs.
Microskills and Research
▲ Significant Findings
 Expect results
 Practice is essential
 Multicultural differences are real
 Different theories have different patterns of skill usage
 Specific microskills result in predictable client responses.
Microskills Learning Model
Practice, Practice, Practice…
The 5-steps learning framework:
1. Warm up. Focus on a single skill and identify it as a vital part of
the holistic interview.
2. View. View a DVD or observe a live demonstration.
3. Read. Read about the skill or hear a lecture on the main points
of effective usage.
4. Practice. Ideally, use video or audio recording for skill practice;
however, role-play practice with observers and feedback
sheets is also effective.
5. Generalize. Complete a self-assessment. Integrate the skills
and contract for action into the “real world” of interviewing,
counseling, and therapy.
Microskills
▲ They are dimensions of emotional intelligence and social
competence.
▲ Teaching these skills to clients has proven to be an
effective counseling and therapeutic technique in itself.
▲ Full intentional competence makes a difference to you
and your clients.
▲ You can “go through” the skills quickly and understand
them, but really practicing them to full mastery makes for
real expertise.
DRAWING OUT CLIENT STORIES
▲ Interviewing, counseling, and psychotherapy are
concerned with client stories.
▲ Your first task is to listen carefully to these stories and
learn how clients come to think, feel, and act as they do.
▲ Through interviewing, counseling, and psychotherapy it
is possible to rewrite and rethink/restory old narratives
into new, more positive and productive stories.
▲ The resulting change may be deeper awareness of
emotional experience, more useful ways of thinking, and
new behavioral actions.
DRAWING OUT CLIENT STORIES
▲ Our aim is development and growth.
▲ Expect your clients to have enormous capacity for
change.
▲ Search for strengths, positives, and power in the client to
help him or her cope with their most difficult situation or
story.
The case of the 8-year-old child teased
by friends
▲ Reflection Questions
 What is the role of listening?
 What are the potential strengths observed in this child?
 What is the role of storytelling?
 What is the ultimate goal of this intervention?
 What can you expect next time you see him or her?
Narrative theory
▲ Narrative theory is a relatively new model for
understanding counseling, interviewing, and
psychotherapy sessions.
▲ Narrative theory emphasizes storytelling and the
generation of new meanings.
▲ Main concepts includes narration, storytelling, and
conversation.
The narrative model of Intentional
Interviewing and Counseling
Relationship—story and strengths—goals—restory—action.
▲ Listening to the story, finding positive strengths in that
story or another life dimension, and rewriting a new
narrative for action are what interviewing, counseling,
and psychotherapy are about.
1. Relationship
5. Action
4. Restory
2. Story and
Strengths
3. Goal
Relationship
▲ Develop rapport, trust, and a working alliance with your
client.
▲ Attending skills help establish the relationship.
▲ Be your own natural self.
▲ Every relationship will be different and will test your
social skills and understanding.
▲ Working alliance is another word for relationship.
 About 30% of successful counseling and therapy outcome is due
to relationship or common factors consisting of caring, empathy,
acceptance, affirmation, and encouragement.
Story & Strengths
▲ Learn how clients make sense of their problems, challenges, and
issues by listening to their stories.
▲ Help them tell their stories in their own way.
 Attending and observation skills will help client draw their stories.
 Encouraging, paraphrasing, reflection of feeling, and summarization will
help them fill out the story.
▲ Different counseling systems and theories may draw out different
aspects of stories that lead in varying directions.
▲ Listening skills are key in drawing out client strengths to solve their
problems.
 Listen for and be “curious about their competencies—the heroic stories
that reflect their part in surmounting obstacles, initiating action, and
maintaining positive change.
Goals
▲ If you don’t know where you are going, you may end up
somewhere else.
▲ Help the client determine where he or she wants to go.
▲ Brief counseling considers this area so important that
they often start the interview right here.
 “What do you want to happen today as a result of our
conversation?”
Restory
▲ Help clients restory — generate new ways to talk about themselves.
▲ Many times listening are sufficient to provide clients with the
strength and power to develop their own new narratives.
 The 5-stage interview helps find new ways of making meaning.
▲ Counseling theories give us alternative ways to think and talk about
client stories.
 Learn the vitality and power of counseling theories such as cognitive,
behavioral, psychodynamic, existential-humanistic, multicultural counseling
and therapy, brief counseling, and others.
▲ As you define your own natural style, remain open to the multitude
of possibilities offered by the professional helping field.
Action
▲ Help the client bring new ways of thinking and being into
action.
▲ Each counseling theory will provide you with alternative
ways of action.
 For example, person-centered counseling emphasize self-discover,
emotion, and meaning, in while cognitive behavioral methods
actively seek to change ways of thinking and behaving.
▲ As you define your own natural style, remain open to the
multitude of possibilities offered by these theories.
INCREASING SKILL AND FLEXIBILITY: INTENTIONALITY,
CULTURAL INTENTIONALITY, AND INTENTIONAL PREDICTION
▲ INCREASING SKILL AND FLEXIBILITY
 There are many ways to facilitate client development.
 Learn to blend what is natural for you with new interviewing skills.
 Be yourself but realize that to reach a wide variety of clients you will
need to be flexible and learn new ways of being in the interview.
Intentionality
core goal of effective interviewing
▲ Clients come to us with multiple issues and concerns.
▲ How you listen and how you respond may say as much
about you and your style, as it says about your client.
 Look at yourself and your listening style.
▲ Beginning interviewers are often eager to find the “right”
answer for the client.
 It will be ideal to find the perfect response that would free the
client for more creative living and wellness!
▲ Intentional interviewing is concerned with how many
potential responses may be helpful.
Intentionality
definition
▲ Intentionality is acting with a sense of capability;
choosing from among a range of alternative actions,
thoughts, and behaviors in responding to changing life
situations.
The Intentional Individual
Developing Multiple Responses
▲ has more than one action, thought, or behavior to
choose from in responding to changing life situations.
▲ can generate alternatives in a given situation and
approach a problem from different vantage points, using
a variety of skills and personal qualities, adapting styles
to suit different individuals and cultures.
Lack of Intentionality
▲ Lack of intentionality shows in the interview when the
helper persists in using only one skill, one definition of
the problem, or one theory of interviewing, even when
that approach isn’t working.
Intentionality involves…
▲ Listening first; solving problems later.
▲ Avoiding “perfect” solutions.
▲ Avoiding jumping to the “right” response too soon.
▲ Adapting your style to suit different individuals / cultures.
Cultural Intentionality
definition
▲ Cultural Intentionality is assessing client cultural
background and flexing microskill application to achieve
specific results; and recognizing that the result achieved
from use of specific microskills may vary widely among
clients from different cultures.
Cultural Intentionality
Alternatives for Cultural Differences
Know and integrate communication styles and
relationship experiences of diverse cultural groups
into your own personal helping style
Age
Ethnicity
Health
Race
Individuality
Ability
Gender
Lifestyle
Sexual Orientation
Religion / Spirituality
Disability
Development
Cultural Intentionality
remember…
▲ All interviewing, counseling, and psychotherapy is
multicultural.
▲ Same microskills may have different effects on people
from varying cultural backgrounds.
▲ Culture can be defined in many ways and cultural
differences may include religion, class, race/ethnicity,
gender, lifestyle, disability, or age.
▲ Avoid stereotyping.
▲ For many diversity is what constitutes the mainstream.
Cultural Intentionality
remember (cont.)…
▲ Individuals differ as much as or more than cultures.
▲ Attune your responses to the unique human being before
you.
▲ Respecting and honoring our differences bring us
together as one people.
Intentional Prediction
Expect Specific Results From Specific Use of Microskills
▲ If you work intentionally in the interview, you can
anticipate predictable client responses. And, even if the
expected does not happen, you can intentionally flex and
come up with a helpful alternative comment.
Intentional Prediction
Expect Specific Results From Specific Use of Microskills
 For example, if you use questioning skills, you can predict how
clients respond. If you reflect feelings, you can predict clients will
focus on their emotions.
Questions: Closed and open
questions are used to help
clients clarify their issues.
Predicted result: Clients will
give more detail and talk more
in response to open questions.
Closed questions may provide
specific information.
Reflection of Feeling:
Identified key emotions are fed
back to the client to help them
clarify affective experience.
Predicted result: Clients will be
able to experience their
emotional states more clearly.
Example
▲ Open Questions
 Begin an interview.
 Open new topics and pinpoint/clarify details.
 Identify specifics.
 Assist with client / situation assessment.
▲ Closed Questions
 Focus the interview
 Reveal specific details.
 Close down client talk.
 Increase interviewer control.
Example (cont.)
▲ Open Questions
 Encourage more pertinent detail.
 Clients talk more and give more detail.
▲ Closed Questions
 Encourage more focused client talk.
 Encourage more pertinent detail
 Encourage less wandering.
 Clients provide specific information.
Intentional Competence
▲ Intentional Competence is integrating your natural style,
self-understanding, and artistic abilities with the
somewhat predictable client responses from your use of
the microskills, allowing you to flex and change direction
in order to be with your client in new ways, required for
their development.
Intentionality and Predicted Results
▲ Each microskill is coupled with a general set of predicted
results (see Appendix I).
▲ Predictability and ability to anticipate results of your
interventions will never reach 100%.
▲ If the first skill does not produce the expected result, be
ready with another skill or concept.
▲ By developing cultural intentionality through microskill
training you will have a large array of competencies to
help clients grow in their own direction
Theory and Microskills
▲ 1966–1968: Single skills microskills model is developed by a group
at Colorado State University.
▲ 1974: Identification of multicultural differences in communication
styles.
▲ The model has been tested nationally and internationally in over
1,000 clinical and teaching programs in the past 35 years.
▲ More than 450 microskills studies have been completed to date.
(See CD-ROM for detailed research review.)
▲ Microcounseling was the first systematic video-based counseling
model to identify specific observable skills.
Microskills Premise
▲ The premise behind the microskills model is that the
skills are useful in multiple theories and settings
What is the theory underlying the microskills
approach?
▲ Many students ask about this.
▲ First, interviewing and counseling are informed by more
than 250 theories and may not need another one.
 We’d prefer that you focus on skills and not emphasize
theoretical implications until later.
▲ Secondly, the microskills provide an integrative theory
that helps understand and practice multiple theoretical
approaches.
Table 1-1 Microskill patterns of some popular theoretical
approaches and strategies.
▲ The first 6 theories listed are
presented in this book. They were
selected because of their wide
use.
▲ Knowledge gained here will
enhance your learning and
mastery of these and other
theories.
▲ Observe that virtually all theories
give considerable attention to the
listening skills. However, the
influencing skills vary widely in
their use.
Information Processing as a PersonEnvironment Transaction
Genogram
▲ The interview is contact in which two brains interact in the conscious present with a
considerable underlay of past history. Also, interpersonal change and growth occurs.
Counseling is not a one-way street.
BRAIN RESEARCH AND NEUROSCIENCE:
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE INTERVIEW
▲ Recent developments in brain science are changing the
way we look at people and the influence of the
environment on individuals.
▲ To communicate with other mental health and medical
professionals, you will need to study and increase your
knowledge of this cutting edge field.
▲ Neuroscience and neuropsychology will enhance and
clarify our practice.
BRAIN RESEARCH AND NEUROSCIENCE:
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE INTERVIEW (cont.)
Definition of Neuroplasticity
▲ Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s capacity to develop
new neural connection in response to new experiences
and can remodel neural networks.
What Does This Mean for You and the
Helping and Interviewing Process?
▲ The most dramatic example of neuroplasticity is
evidence that effective counseling and therapy produce
new neurons in the brain.
▲ When you interact with clients, both your and your
client’s brain develop new neural connections as a result
of your interaction.
▲ Successful interviewing and counseling help clients
develop new and useful connections.
 See Appendix II for an extensive review of the relationship
between microskills, helping theory, and brain functioning.
SUMMARY:
MASTERING THE SKILLS AND STRATEGIES OF
INTENTIONAL INTERVIEWING AND COUNSELING
▲ Welcome to the fascinating field of interviewing,
counseling, and psychotherapy!
▲ You are being introduced to the basics of the individual
counseling session, but the same skills are essential in
group and family work.
▲ Physicians and nurses, managers in business settings,
peer counselors, and many others have adopted this skill
training format as part of their profession and/or training.
▲ The system works and is constantly changing and
growing.
Key Points
Interviewing, counseling, and psychotherapy
▲ These are interrelated processes that sometimes
overlap. Interviewing may be considered the more basic
and is often associated with information gathering and
providing necessary data to help client’s resolve issues.
Coaching operates from a strength framework and helps
plan for immediate and long-term change. Counseling
focuses on normal developmental concerns whereas
psychotherapy emphasizes treatment of more deepseated issues.
Key Points
Microskills
▲Microskills are the single communication skill
units of the interview (for example, questions,
reflection of feelings). They are taught one at a
time to ensure mastery of basic interviewing
competencies.
Key Points
Microskills hierarchy
▲ The hierarchy organizes microskills into a systematic
framework for the eventual integration of skills into the
interview in a natural fashion. The microskills rest on a
foundation of ethics, multicultural competence, and
wellness. The attending and listening skills are followed
by confrontation, focusing influencing skills, and eventual
skill integration.
Key Points
Microskills teaching model
▲ Five steps are used to teach the single skills of
interviewing:
1. warm up to skill;
2. view the skill in action;
3. read and learn about broader uses of the skill;
4. practice; and
5. generalize learning the interview and to daily life.
▲ The model is useful to teach social skills to clients in the
interview.
Key Points
Relationship—story and strengths—goals—restory—action
▲ Our first task is to help clients tell their stories. To
facilitate development, we need to draw out narratives of
their personal assets. With a positive foundation, clients
may learn to write new stories with the possibility of new
actions. James Lanier reminds us that language
stressing a problem or disorder may get in the way of
effective interviewing and counseling.
Key Points
Intentionality
▲ Achieving intentionality is the major goal of this book and
a central goal of the cultural intentionality interviewing
process itself. Intentionality is acting with a sense of
capability and deciding from among a range of
alternative actions. The intentional individual has more
than one action, thought, or behavior to choose from in
responding to life situations.
Key Points
Cultural intentionality
▲ The culturally intentional individual can generate
alternatives from different vantage points, using a variety
of skills and personal qualities within a culturally
appropriate framework.
Key Points
Intentional prediction
▲ When you use specific skills in the interview, you can
predict what the client is likely to say next. However,
each person is different and often will not behave exactly
as predicted. You will shift style and change skills to
continue the interview smoothly.
Key Points
Theory and microskills
▲ All counseling theories use the microskills but in varying
patterns with differing goals. Mastery of the skills will
facilitate your becoming able to work with many
theoretical alternatives. The microskills framework can
also be considered a theory in itself in which interviewer
and client work together to enable the construction of
new stories, accompanied by changes in thought and
action.
Key Points
Research validation
▲ The microskills model has been validated by more than
450 database studies and over 40 years of clinical
practice. The skills can be learned, and they do have an
impact on clients, but they must be practiced constantly
or the user will lose them.
Key Points
Brain research and neuroscience
▲ Interviewing and counseling will be increasingly informed
by research in this area in the coming years and you will
want to keep abreast of new developments.
▲ Of particular importance is neuroplasticity.
“Neuroplasticity can result in the wholesale remodeling
of neural networks . . . a brain can rewrite itself ”
(Schwartz & Begley, 2003, p. 16).
▲ Successful interviewing may be expected to help clients
develop new and useful connections.
Key Points
You, microskills, and the interview
▲ Microskills are useful only if they harmonize with your
own natural style in the interview. Before you proceed
further with this book, audiorecord or videorecord an
interview with a friend or a classmate, and make a
transcript of this interview.
▲ Later, as you learn more about interview analysis,
examine or study your behavior in that interview.
▲ You’ll want to compare it with your performance in an
interview some months from now.
YOUR NATURAL STYLE: AN IMPORTANT
AUDIO OR VIDEO EXERCISE
▲ You are about to engage in a systematic study of the interviewing
process.
▲ Complete Exercise 1: Your Natural Helping Style before proceeding
too far into this book. The exercise is explained in the next section.
 When you complete the exercise, don’t forget to request feedback from
your “client.”
▲ The first audio- or videorecording of yourself using your natural
communication style during an interview will help you obtain an
accurate picture of where you are as you begin.
▲ You will want to compare your interview with later work as you
progress through this text. Your present natural style is a baseline
you will want to keep in touch with and honor.
COMPETENCY PRACTICE EXERCISE AND
SELF-ASSESSMENT
Chapter 1
Individual Practice
Self-assessment
Exercise 1: YOUR NATURAL STYLE: AN IMPORTANT
AUDIO OR VIDEO EXERCISE
IIC
What is Your Natural Helping Style?
▲ Audio- or videotape a baseline interview using
your natural style.
▲ Helpful to acquire a written transcript of the
interview for a study script.
▲ Compare baseline with subsequent skills practice
and development.
Exercise 1: YOUR NATURAL STYLE: AN IMPORTANT
AUDIO OR VIDEO EXERCISE
IIC
GUIDELINES
▲ Find a volunteer client willing to role-play a
concern, problem, opportunity, or issue.
▲ Interview the volunteer client for at least 15
minutes. Seek to avoid sensitive topics.
▲ Use your own natural communication style.
▲ Ask the volunteer client, “May I record this
interview?”
▲ Inform the client that the tape recorder may be
turned off at any time.
Exercise 1: YOUR NATURAL STYLE: AN IMPORTANT
AUDIO OR VIDEO EXERCISE
IIC
GUIDELINES (cont.)
▲ Select a topic. You and the client may choose
multicultural dimensions, interpersonal conflict, or
a specific issue selected by the “client.”
▲ Follow ethical guidelines. See Chapter 2 for a
review of ethical practice.
▲ Request that your volunteer client complete the
Client Feedback Form (Box 1-3).
▲ Compare this baseline with subsequent recordings
of your work later in this course.
FORM
IIC
Client Feedback Form (in CH. 1)
In practice sessions, it is
very helpful to get immediate
feedback. As you practice
the microskills, we
encourage you to use the
Client Feedback Form.
Exercise 1: SELF-ASSESSMENT
IIC
Review your audio- or videotape and ask yourself and the
volunteer client the following questions:
1. What did you do that you think was effective and helpful?
2. What stands out for you from the Client Feedback Form and any
other comments the client may have said to you about the
session?
3. Can you identify one thing you would like to improve?
4. What strengths do you bring to the study of interviewing? Include
the natural skills observed in the session plus personal strengths
and qualities that you believe will be helpful in your future
growth.
5. What areas would you like to grow and learn more about yourself.
Exercise 2: DIVERSITY, MULTICULTURALISM,
AND YOU
IIC
Culture Counts!
▲ Part of cultural intentionality and multicultural competence
is your awareness of yourself as a cultural being and your
ability to work empathetically with people different from you.
▲ Unless you are aware of yourself as a cultural being, you
will have difficulty in developing awareness of others.
▲ You need to understand the differences that may exist
between you and those who may come from different
cultures.
▲ An important skill is recognizing your limitations and the
need in certain cases for referral.
Exercise 2: DIVERSITY, MULTICULTURALISM,
AND YOU (cont.)
IIC
Culture Counts!
▲ Consider the list below and the multiple cultural identities
we all have as part of our being.
Language
Physical ability/disability
Race/ethnicity
Socioeconomic status
Gender, Age (young, old)
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Significant life experience (e.g.,
rape, abuse, cancer, war)
Spirituality
Area of the country
Nationality
▲ You may want to add other issues to this list. We are all
multicultural beings deeply affected by our cultural and
environmental context.
Exercise 2: DIVERSITY, MULTICULTURALISM,
AND YOU (cont.)
IIC
Examine your personal preferences and biases
▲ How much experience do you have with people who are
different from you?
▲ How able are you to work with those who may be different
from you?
 For example, if you are heterosexual, how able are you to work with
the gay or lesbian culture? If you are gay or lesbian, how able are you
to work with the heterosexual culture?
▲ What developmental steps do you need to take to increase
your understanding and awareness?
DETERMINING YOUR OWN
STYLE AND THEORY:
CRITICAL SELF-REFLECTION
ON YOUR FIRST
INTERVIEW
DETERMINING YOUR OWN STYLE AND THEORY: CRITICAL SELFREFLECTION ON YOUR FIRST INTERVIEW
▲Keep a journal of your path through this course and
your reflections on its meaning to you.
▲Your first session is a critical foundation on which to
build.
 Here are some questions you may consider.
 We build on strengths. What did you do right in this
session? What did the client notice as helpful?
 What was the essence of the client’s story? How did you
help the client bring out his or her
narrative/issues/concerns/problems?
 How did you demonstrate intentionality? When
something you said did not go as anticipated, what did
you do next?
 Name just one thing on which you would like to improve
in the next session you have.
CRITICAL SELF-REFLECTION ON YOUR FIRST
INTERVIEW
Here are just a few of many possible questions
that you can consider.
 We build on strengths. What do you do right in this session?
What did the client notice as helpful?
 What was the essence of the client’s story? How did you help
the client bring out their narrative/issues/concerns/problems?
 How did you demonstrate intentionality? When something you
said did not go anticipated, what did you do next?
 Name just one thing on which you would like to improve in the
next session you have?
Write your ideas in your journal
As you begin…
▲ The first practice competency exercise asks you to
examine yourself and identify your strengths as a helper.
▲ YOU are the person who counts.
▲ Develop your counseling skills based on your natural
expertise and social skills.
Learning Check √
√ Focus on development as the aim of interviewing, counseling, and
psychotherapy.
√ Achieve intentionality, cultural intentionality, and intentional
competence.
√ Learn the 5-stages of the interview.
√ Integrate the step-by-step microskills model into your personal
theory and helping style.
√ Identify how the microskills model applies to varying theories of
counseling and psychotherapy.
√ Examine your natural helping style.
√ Use your own skills as a base to grow your microskills practice.