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Argosy University

September 29, 2016

Purpose of an Interview with a Client with Persistent Headaches and Lack of Sleep

This interview will be between a psychologist and a client who has had persistent headaches and problems in getting sleep. The client thinks that this issue may have been caused by stress from work as she is the managing director of a firm that requires a lot of her input to get results. The primary purpose of the interview will be to collect information that can be used to help in the treatment of the client (Miller & Studio D, 2016).

The interview will also be aimed at establishing the cause of the persistent headaches that the customer if facing together with sleeplessness because these may be symptoms of other problems that the client may not be in a manner to identify. The information collected from the client would help the counselor to structure a treatment plan for the client. The interview will also help the psychologist to assess the kind of issues that the client is going through.

The Structure of an Interview with a Client

An interview with a client requires one to be composed and needs to have a good structure that would lead to collecting enough information towards solving the client's problems. Effective communication will be essential during the interview process. The better that the counselor can communicate their skills and expertise, the more quality information can be collected from the client. The next thing in the interview structure would be the warm up section where the psychologist may be asked general questions out of the subject. This part will enable the client to familiarize with the interview environment (Connecticut, 2002).

The other part of the interview structure will be the information exchange which is the major part of the discussion. In this section, the client will be asked many questions and also will learn a lot from the counselor. The inquiries that the client will be asked at this point would lead to establishing the cause of her problems for an appropriate course of treatment. The final stage of the interview would be the wrap-up stage where the client will be given the opportunity to ask the counselor some questions. These items would include questions intended to clarify some of the concerns that the psychologist raised during the interview. It is at this stage where the interviewer may summarize the information that they collected and had the client add or elaborate some of the information that she may feel was not correctly recorded.

The structure of the interview would enable the client and the interviewer to have a common ground where every participant will be positive about the process. The structure will also give the customer confidence in the counselor. Similarly, the structure would ensure that all parts of the interview are covered sufficiently without missing any important part.

The topics that are intended to be covered include;

· Background information of the client

· Nature of the clients Job

· Background of the client's problems

· Symptoms evident in the client's problems

· History of any treatment that might have been sought before for the same problem

· The expected outcomes from the interview and treatment process

Questions That Will Be Used In Obtaining the Required Information

To acquire sufficient information concerning the client's problem, the psychologist will need to formulate questions before the interview. These items will include closed-ended questions where the client will be required to give specific responses like yes or no ("Research methods in public administration and public management an Introduction," 2014). The other set of questions will include open-ended questions where the client will be required to elaborate and give more information regarding their problem. The prior formulation of the questions will act as a guide to the interview process and aid collection of sufficient information towards finding a lasting solution to the clients' concerns.

The questions that will be used to get information from the client toward finding a treatment plan for her problems will include:

Background information about the client

1. Would you kindly tell me, how old are you?

2. Are you married?

3. Are you employed?

4. How do you manage family and job commitments?

Nature of client’s job

5. What are some of the responsibilities in your organization as an employee?

6. Do you get a lot of pressure from your employer?

7. Would you kindly explain the nature of the pressures that you get from your boss?

8. What can you say about the problem that you are going through and the nature of your employment?

Background of the clients problems

9. When did you start experiencing headaches and sleepless nights?

10. Are there some occasions where you fail to attend duty due to persistent headaches?

11. Do you find yourself sleeping at work?

12. Do you share your problems with your family?

Symptoms evident from the client’s problems

13. When are the headaches more persisted? Is it at home or the place of work?

14. How frequently do the headaches occur?

15. How long do they last after they begin?

16. Does lack of sleep come alongside headaches?

17. Which one of them seems to lead to the other?

18. Does lack of sleep affect your job performance?

History of treatment for headaches and lack of sleep

19. How many times have you been under medication on headache problems?

20. Has the treatment worked?

21. How has a headache and lack of sleep behaved when you are on these medications?

Client Expectations

22. Do you have any question or any other information that you would like to share?

23. What do you expect at the end of this session?

Examples of Paraphrasing, Summaries and Reflection Techniques to Be Used In the Interview

Paraphrasing, summaries or reflections are some of the methods that can be used adequately to gunner information from a client. One of the paraphrasing techniques that will be employed in the interview is expansion paraphrasing. Expansion paraphrasing technique can be used to get more information from the client as it makes the client give more details. For example, the client will say, "I started experiencing consistent headaches after I was promoted to my current position." Which the counselor may paraphrase it as, "you started experiencing regular headaches after you got promoted to your current position, please tell me more."

Another technique that will be used in the interview to gather information is the summary method where the psychologist will summarize some of the information that the client gives (Ivey, Ivey, & Zalaquett, 2013). For example taking the example of the response above, the counselor may summarize it as, "did headaches came with the promotion." reflection, on the other hand, is an interview technique that involves serious thought or consideration of a situation. Reflection will be used in the interview to get information from the client. For example, when the client answers the question on the relationship of headaches and lack of sleep and job performance, the interviewer can show through the body language reflecting on the possible suffering that the client is experiencing.

Similarly, restate and reorder paraphrasing technique will be used in the interview. This is a technique that involves restating what the client has said and or rearranging their wordings. For example, "you were promoted to your current position, and then you started experiencing persistent headaches and lack of sleep." Under this example, the interviewer has restated the idea of the client but rearranged the sentence wording.

Another technique that will be utilized in the interview is a paraphrasing technique that involves getting the main ideas in a response and stating it in your words. For example, a paraphrase of our example above would be like, "you started encountering headaches after you were elevated to your present position?"

Opening Techniques for Creating Rapport with the Client

One of the initiation methods that the interviewer may use to create a good rapport with the client would be to introduce a neutral subject at the warm-up stage of the interview. This technique will help the client to relieve any anxiety that may have mounted. The interviewer may start asking the client about the prevailing weather conditions and or their travel to the interview.

Another technique that would be used to build a good relationship between the client and the interviewer would be to ensure that the privacy of the information that will be disclosed is guaranteed. This objective would be achieved by looking for a secure room for the interview where there are no destructors or other distractions that may put fear to the client (Vangelisti, A, & Friedrich, 1999).

Finally, the interviewer can allow their personality to be evident at the beginning of the interview, listen carefully and be positive about the condition of the client is another technique that would be utilized in the opening of the discussion.

Examples of Questions to Be Avoided During the Interview

Some questions would make the client feel insecure with the interview and thus fail to give detailed information concerning their problems (Weber & Kelley, 2009). Some of these questions to be avoided include;

1. What are your sexual preferences?

2. Do you think you are about to be sacked by your boss?

3. Does your family complain about your situation?

4. Why did you look for medication elsewhere when you knew you have a psychological problem?

Analysis Summary of Preliminary thought about the Client

Headache problems and lack of sleep are common problems that can lead to a person becoming insane. These forms of illnesses are very disturbing, and I believe they cause a lot of discomfort to the patient. My belief about such people is that I am sympathetic as I try to figure out the pain they go through. The belief of being sympathetic on one hand can be used to encourage the client to share their story as they will feel that someone is there for them. On the contrary, the client may feel that the interviewer is weak and fail to give the required information. The self-beliefs would lead to success or failed interview according to how it will be perceived by the client (Kramer, 2014). Being unsympathetic will affect the discussion in that the client will not get the psychological support that they need and thus they will have a negative attitude towards the interview which will lead to failure of establishing a sufficient treatment plan.

The beliefs are influenced by my age and experience in the field of psychology as I have dealt with clients with various varying problems. My age in the area of therapy has influenced the belief that I should be sympathetic to my clients by expressing my empathy for their situations. Culture and gender have been influencers' to the feelings of the people where I grew treat people's problems with a lot of sympathies.

Personal beliefs can lead to positive or negative impacts on an interview. To reduce the effects of personal beliefs on the interview, I would first revisit the ethical guidelines in the counseling field. These guidelines would restrict my involvement with the client to the primary purpose of the interview (Aunger, 2003). Second, I would try to avoid instances that portray elements of the beliefs during the interview and lastly, I would maintain the client to a professional relationship with the client. For the positive impacts, I would use them to enhance the quality of the information collected.

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