Chapter 9: Interviewing the Involuntary: Children, Dyads, and Mandated Clients
1. Involuntary clients feel ____________ or pressured into meeting with a professional.
a. This often includes children who are made to come by ____________.
b. This can include one person in a ____________.
c. Clients may be ____________ by a legal authority
2. Practice procedures in the helping professions were originally designed to work with ____________ clients.
Taking a solution focus
3. Clients change themselves, most often by doing something ____________.
4. Observations have shown that the more ____________ practitioners become in client outcomes, the more their interviewing questions are motivated by their agenda for client ____________, thus ignoring the client’s frame of reference.
5. It has been observed that practitioners work best when they do not think of themselves as change agents but as respectful ____________ practitioners who always puts the client in the position of informing them of what might want, what could happen in their situations, and how to go about making those things happen.; this applies to clients in both voluntary and involuntary situations.
Key ideas for solution building with involuntary clients
6. When Insoo met with Beth she was able to communicate with her by asking for her ____________ of the situation.
7. Insoo began to solution build with Beth around what Beth____________.
Assume a visiting relationship
8. Thinking of the relationship as starting in the visiting mode will help you to go ____________ and be prepared to ____________ the clients.
Responding to anger and negativity
9. It is important that you do not take negative comments at the beginning of the interview ____________; it is not about you.
10. Accepting the client’s ____________ and asking more about them is an effective way to start.
11. You can do this by basing your next question on the client’s last ____________.
Listen for who and what are important
12. Comments made by the client are usually quite clear about whom and what is ____________ to the client and you can begin to get an idea of what the client might want.
13. Once you have some information about what the client wants, the relationship begins to shift from a visitor type relationship to a ____________ type relationship.
Use relationship questions to address context
14. Instead of challenging or ____________ clients around facts and what others say, solution building invites clients to build their solutions in context by asking relationship questions.
15. Client’s answers to relationship questions help the client and the interviewer figure out if emerging goals and solutions are useful and ____________.
Incorporating nonnegotiable requirements
16. In situations where there are nonnegotiable requirements of demands from outside agents, it is most likely not necessary to confront, but simply to advance by respectfully giving clear information and proceeding with related ____________ questions.
Giving control to clients
17. Solution building probably works as well for voluntary and involuntary clients because the interviewer is always giving ____________ and ____________ back to the clients in what they talk about, how they talk about themselves and what might be useful.
18. In solution building, clients soon sense they are ____________ to explore what they want and how to make that happen.
Guidelines, useful questions, and a protocol for interviewing involuntary clients
19. The guidelines for interviewing involuntary clients stress staying in the client’s ________________________, suspending judgment, and maintaining a posture of ____________.
Building Solutions with Children
Children as involuntary clients
20. Children are almost always ____________ clients as problems and ____________ in life are generally defined by an adult; by the time the child is referred for professional help, many things have usually been tried and the child has gotten many negative messages about themselves and generally feel ____________ and frustrated.
Getting prepared to meet a child
21. It is helpful to have child sized furniture and toys in your office.
22. You will remain more calm and collected if you have ____________ your office.
23. It is also helpful to have a large uncluttered space so there is room to move around.
24. ____________ sessions often work better with children, and it is often helpful to go for a ____________ with a child since they have a lot of energy.
Getting started with positives
25. Always start by ____________ ____________ the child.
26. Look for ____________ about the child.
27. Get to know about the child’s family and who is ____________ to them.
28. Use ____________ language and do not correct child’s language.
29. ____________ questions may help early on to bring out positives such as Insoo’s question about what Sam’s mom would say about his care for his little sister.
30. When you communicate to the child that you are ____________ that she is already ____________, you can gradually move on to the more troublesome areas.
Enlisting adults as allies
31. Since adults define children’s behavior as ____________, the same adults are the only ones who can change or revise their definition about the problem.
32. Children’s problems get resolved when the troublesome behavior no longer occurs or when the adults decide the problematic behavior is not a ____________ anymore.
33. Because adults have more ____________ than children, the authors prefer to work with adults around the presenting problems of children, particularly when the children are very young.
34. ____________ the parents usually ends up ____________ the child.
35. Sometimes adults are not accessible and it is necessary to work with the child first.
Getting the child’s perceptions
36. Most children that you see will have multiple helpers, each with their own ideas, thus it is important to ask the child what his ____________ of the situation are and what might be helpful.
37. Insoo used the ____________ scale to help gain information about Sam’s perspective.
38. For many children, ____________ is a way to express themselves and their perceptions.
Other tips for interviewing children
39. The solution building process with children is essentially the same as with adults, with a few exceptions.
a. Use many ____________ questions – children and particularly teenagers are extremely sensitive to what others think of them.
b. Children are also often confused about how they ____________ or ____________ because adults often speak for them or their opinions have been disrespected, so they may be more willing to answer questions that focus on other people’s ideas, such as ____________ questions.
c. Avoid “why” questions: - this is usually asked to children in a form of ____________ and has a negative connotation. “How come?” can be a better substitute and may lead to more useful information.
d. Respond to “I don’t know” in a calm manner and take the words literally, and acknowledge that this is a ____________ question and ask them to pretend they did know and think about what the answer would be. You can also use this to ask relationship questions, to find out what they think others would see as the answer.
i. You can also ____________ clients on being the strong and silent type.
ii. With students who are so depressed they really can’t answer this, use ____________ questions.
iii. Combining ____________ and relationship questions can offer the best chance to bring out the client’s own description of ____________.
e. Assume competence – things like____________ don’t work and assuming the client has a ____________ ____________ for their actions works more effectively.
f. Listen for hints of ____________ – once any part of an exception can be identified, you can build on this.
g. Children’s’ ____________ and good imagination can be great strengths for them.
h. Children also recognize ____________ and respect.
Interviewing Dyads
40. A dyad is two people who are in a ____________ relationship.
41. When a dyad comes to see you, it is usually the idea of only one of the people in the dyad.
42. This type of interview is also called ____________ interviewing.
43. It is important to adopt the same ____________ attitude that you would adopt with any individual client.
Focus on the relationship
44. Thinking and responding at a____________ level will help you avoid getting into the details of each person’s ____________ view of the other.
Getting started
45. It is important to get both participants perspectives. You can emphasize this by ____________ and ____________ what is important in the relationship to each person and what they might want different.
46. Another way to start that may avoid rehashing the complaints the dyad has probably rehashed many times is to focus on the person who is most likely the one who is there involuntarily and focus on that person’s ____________.
47. Clients in dyads often compliment each others strengths in response to ____________ questions, as there are usually positives as well as negatives in the dyad.
48. Focusing on strengths generally makes the process of solution building proceed more quickly and with less ____________.
Work toward a common goal
49. Asking what the clients want – it is important to move ____________ to asking what the clients want in a dyad, as this minimizes the potential for conflict.
50. This also helps start the process towards a ____________ goal.
51. How to stay focused on the relationship – With Alex and Nancy, Insoo keeps the focus on ____________ and ____________ developing goals in a relational context.
52. Maintaining balance – Maintaining a balance between both members of the dyad demonstrates ____________ for both persons and communicates that the involvement and ideas of both are necessary to build a more satisfying relationship.
53. Reinforcing the invitation to construct a common goal – solution building questioning continually invites clients to work towards a common goal for their relationship, which generally involves wanting to____________ their relationship.
54. When clients problem talk – If the members of the dyad cannot come up with a goal, turn the complaint into a ____________ goal.
a. Once clients accept the ____________ goal statement implicit in their complaints, you can continue with the solution focused questioning.
55. Asking the miracle question – use this the same way you would with an individual
a. This may also be used early in the interview to defuse ____________ ____________ dyad members.
56. Using scaling to continue generating ____________ – when members of the dyad have very different views about what should happen and cannot seem to find common ground, scaling may be useful in keeping the conversation going towards ________________________.
Other tips
57. More on handling conflicts and interruption – when the clients keep sniping at each other, you can refocus this by stating you will come back to that (although not usually doing that), or by gently but assertively ____________, such as mentioning the importance of hearing each person so requesting they agree to talk one at a time.
58. Maintaining ____________ – if you lose your ____________, you will harm both people.
59. A personal ____________ reaction against one member of the dyad is evidence that you are losing your neutrality
a. You can avoid this by focusing on the____________ rather than the individual clients.
b. Practitioners are most useful when they function as though they have no ____________ in the outcome.
60. Always look for the goodwill – the reasons clients become so upset with each other is that they care ____________ about the other person; it is important to remember this and build on this strength.
61. As practitioners, we foster and highlight the signs of caring and good will between the participants in dyads to promote ____________ for the relationship; you can do this by highlighting the positive sides of the complaint.
a. Clients respond to questions such as “You know your daughter better than anybody, I imagine. What do you know about your daughter than tells you she can learn new behavior?” The clients will generally respond to this with ____________ upon which you can build.
When one member refused to meet
62. When one person refuses to meet, you and the other person can still work on the relationship, using the ____________ of the client with whom you are meeting by asking relationship questions to bring the other person into the room.
Conclusion
63. According to the authors, conjoint interviewing does not require new solution focused questions or principles, only ____________ of previously learned procedures.
Working with mandated clients
Getting started
64. When there is a legal mandate involved, clients are subject to certain ________________________
a. It is your responsibility as the interviewer to know what the requirements are to and communicate them clearly and____________ to your clients when appropriate.
b. One advantage of nonnegotiable requirements is that you do not have to ____________ them to the client, but you must be prepared to clarify your role to the client.
c. It is also important that you are clear about what you ____________ about the client’s case.
Peter and Tim
65. Peter was careful to accept Tim’s perception and ask for details.
66. Peter noticed what was ____________ to Tim and ____________ it so Tim could clarify and thus expand Peter’s understanding of Tim’s point of view.
Getting more details about the client’s understandings and what the client wants
67. It may soon be clear what the client wants in ____________ situations. For example, Tim was clear that he wanted to get his boys back.
Asking about context with relationship questions
68. Peter asked ____________ questions which helped him avoid taking sides and allowed him to gain more access to Tim’s perceptions that might support an eventual ____________
69. Relationship questions can help explore highly charged areas without jeopardizing trust that may be between the client and interviewer.
70. Asking about tough topics in a ____________ l way enhances the development of a cooperative working relationship.
Co-constructing competence
71. Clients need ____________ and ____________ to generate the courage and willpower they need to take new and demanding steps.
72. Clients in mandated situations often feel ____________ against the system and are less likely to be aware of their past successes and strengths.
Back on Familiar Ground
73. Once the interviewer have clarified their role, worked through initial suspicions and co-constructing goals that incorporate the client’s context, the interviewer’s focus on what is ____________ to the client and what the client wants can lead to a cooperative working relationship, using the same skills as with a nonmandated client.
What about making recommendations that the client opposes?
74. It is important to examine whether the interviewer has ____________ stopped the solution building process when things come to am impasse; returning to solution building may reopen the communication. Clients usually remain in conversation as long as they believe there is a possibility of being ____________.
Final Word
75. When clients are angry, resistant, or otherwise unmotivated with regard to the particular topic of conversation at the moment, it is most useful to remind ourselves that clients are ____________ and we have not yet found a way to cooperate with them.
True or False
1.Most children who see a professional for services fit the definition of being involuntary clients.
2.Practice procedures in the helping professions were originally developed for work with involuntary clients.
3.More recent books published about how to work with involuntary clients suggest paying more attention to how to develop a fit between client motivation and the services which practitioners have to offer.
4.The more invested in client outcomes the practitioner is (that is, the more the practitioner wants certain client outcomes to occur), the more “not knowing “ the practitioner’s interviewing questions are likely to be.
5.The authors state it is more necessary to confront involuntary than voluntary clients.
6.About half of all children who see professionals for counseling or therapy are involuntary clients.
7.When asked what he liked about kindergarten, Sam (the child Insoo interviewed) said he most liked building sand castles in the indoor sandbox in the kindergarden room.
8.Sometimes a child’s problem behavior gets solved by parents deciding that the problem behavior no longer amounts to a problem even though the actual problem behavior has not changed
9.The authors state that because adults have more ability, know-how, and other resources to change than children, they prefer to work with adults around the presenting problems of children or with adults and children conjointly rather than with children alone.
10.When Insoo asked Sam to scale where he was at with his temper problem at school (0 equals the problem at its “baddest” and 10 equals the problem is “all under control”) Sam responded that he was at a 1 because his temper was about the same.
11.Interviewing a dyad is also called conjoint interviewing.
12.In her interview with Alex and his mother, Insoo found out that Alex was doing poorly in school but was a star football player.
13.One way to minimize the potential for conflict between the members of a dyad is for the interviewer to move quickly to asking each person what he or she wants different.
14.In most dyads, even when the two persons are in conflict, they generally want the same thing, namely, an improved relationship.
15.Asking the miracle question early in an interview with a dyad can be an effective way to minimize conflict between the two persons.
16.The authors state that when the position of one member of the dyad is clearly more reasonable and fair than the others, it is appropriate for the interviewer to inform the person with the less reasonable point of view that his or her point of view is creating problems in the relationship and ought to change.
17.Pronounced anger between the members of a dyad is a clear indication that the two persons and their relationship are no longer important to one another.
18.When one member of a dyad refuses to meet with the interviewer and the other member of the dyad, the interviewer can still work on the relationship with the one person present by using relationship questions.
19.The mandated client named Tim, who Peter interviewed, was mandated into services because he was apprehended by the police driving his car while under the influence of alcohol.
20.In work with mandated clients, the context of the client (including the court) is addressed primarily by asking the client scaling questions.
21.In solution building, when an interviewer perceives that a client is resisting services, the rule of thumb is to formulate a not-knowing question about the perceived resistance.
Multiple Choice
1.When the practitioner encounters a client who is negative or angry about meeting with the practitioner, the authors recommend thinking of the client as being in a ____________ -type relationship with the practitioner at that point.
a.conflictual
b.visiting
c.complainant
d.customer
2.For which type of clients is it most important to listen for who and what are important to the client?
a.Involuntary
b.Court ordered
c.Voluntary
d.There is no difference; it is equally important to listen for these things with all clients.
3.The authors recommend all of the following among their ways to get started with children except:
a.asking who the child’s best friends are.
b.asking why the child’s parents thought the child had a problem.
c.asking about something positive about the child such as the colorful shirt the child is wearing or the sharp new shoes.
d.asking about the child’s favorite TV show or favorite book
4.Which solution-focused question allows the child or adolescent who is reluctant to answer to be more likely to answer because this type of question sets up a safer distance between the child and the answer he or she gives?
a.Scaling question
b.Miracle question
c.Coping question
d.Relationship question
5.When Sam feels like punching someone now, he told Insoo that he:
a.goes ahead and punches him.
b.walks away before he has a chance to hit.
c.tells himself it is not nice to punch.
d.counts backwards from 10.
6.When interviewing dyads, it is important to :
a.go into great detail about each person's view of the problem so both feel they are getting equal attention from the interviewer.
b.get more details about the problem from the person whose idea it was to see a professional because that person knows more about the problem which brought the dyad in for services.
c.paraphrase and summarize with a relational focus.
d.avoid using the miracle question because the two persons are likely to have very different miracle pictures.
6. When interviewing a dyad where the two persons seem to reach an impasse with each insisting on his or her point of view, the authors recommend using a question to keep the conversation going in the direction of reaching a common goal?
a.miracle
bcoping
c.scaling
d.exception
8.Regarding goal formulation between Tim and Peter, which best represents Tim’s goal?
a.Tim wanted his children back as soon as possible.
b.Tim wanted his children back after he had 4 to 5 months to get his life back in order including getting a job.
c.Tim felt he needed parenting classes before his children should be returned.
d.Tim was unable to formulate a goal beyond saying the “system” had been unfair to him.
9.Which of the following is most accurate to say about the change in relationship between Tim and Peter from the beginning of the interview to the end of the discussions about what Tim wanted and his related competencies?
a.It remained unchanged.
b.It changed from a complainant to a customer-type relationship.
c.It changed from a visitor to a customer-type relationship.
d.It changed from a visitor to a complainant-type relationship.
Essay
1.Discuss the following quotation from Steve de Shazer, a co-developer of solution-focused therapy: “. . . behavior that is commonly labeled as ‘resistance’ can be usefully redescribed . . . in terms of ‘cooperating’ . . . . “ In your discussion, address the application of this quotation to work with involuntary clients.