Interview summary Essay Example for Free

Interview summary Essay Introduction: Hi! I am ______________. Could you please let me know if you are taking interviews and if so, how soon I might see you? I’m interested in how mental health practitioners like you got your training. Some specifics that I need to know are queries like, why should one see a therapist and how does a typical day with a client be like? 1. How did you get into this kind of profession? Where did you get your training and what are the necessary things that are of primary importance for one to have as a mental health provider? 2. What makes one competent to conduct counseling or therapy? 3. So what are the competencies that are expected by a typical patient as well as the organization which every professional is sanctioned and affiliated with? 4. There must be a sort of internship that every specialist must go through; how did you get into the on-the-job-training and what kind of requirements that you must pass? 5. Let us move on to the ethics of the profession. I have read that the effects of setting limits or boundaries in the therapeutic relationship are lessened effectiveness. What I mean is that due to the risks of being accused of malpractice or running the risks of being involved in a toxic relationship, the therapist must set limits or boundaries. The therapist even has to define many of these things at the outset or before the start of the helping relationship. However, this may mean the reduction of effective treatment to the patient or client. Is this is true with our experience? Why or why not? 6. Could you please tell me what are some of the sensitive issues you’ve encountered so far in dealing with your patients? 7. Have you been in a malpractice suit or know of someone who had undergone this? 8. Let us go to the personal attributes that are generally found to be appealing and attractive for a would-be therapist. Can you enumerate some? 9. Are they natural tendencies or must one acquire them in the process? Are these necessary for a successful practice? 10. I see that communication plays a vital role. What are the nuances of communication necessary for a practitioner to develop as his/her own style and strategy? Interview Summary PART 2 Introduction: Hi! I am ______________. Could you please let me know if you are taking interviews and if so, how soon I might see you? I’m interested in how mental health practitioners like you got your training. Some specifics that I need to know are queries like, why should one see a therapist and how does a typical day with a client be like? 1. How did you get into this kind of profession? Where did you get your training and what are the necessary things that are of primary importance for one to have as a mental health provider? A: Actually, I got interested only to make a career of my course until around my senior year in college that I wanted to be in a â€Å"helping relationship† kind of profession and so I started to plan out what I needed. I evaluated my personal weaknesses and strengths. Most importantly, I realized that I needed to spend more time and money in various seminar/workshops to specially hone whatever skills I have. There are things that I must fully be able to grasp that are basics where I was to deal with a variety of clients since I started and these are: Knowledge of clients’ culture (history, traditions, values, family systems, artistic expressions). Knowledge of the impact of racism and poverty on behavior, attitudes, values, and disabilities. Knowledge of the help-seeking behaviors of ethnic minority clients. Knowledge of the roles of language, speech patterns, and communication styles in different communities. Knowledge of the impact of the social service policies on clients of color. Knowledge of the resources (i. e. , agencies, persons, informal helping networks, research) available for ethnic minority clients and communities. Recognition of how professional values may either conflict with or accommodate the needs of clients from different cultures. 2. What makes one competent to conduct counseling or therapy? Of course, not only should one come from a reputable institution known for excellence in learning, which has clearly transferred to the student and future practitioner the necessary knowledge and skills, pass state licensure exams which are essentials and are given. Competence includes a thorough knowledge of the nature of various individuals coming from different cultural milieu and other factors. Competence involves having insights and enough exposure to the risks that are involved in this profession. Therefore, the ethical considerations and guidelines as a mental health provider must be thoroughly understood. 3. So what are the competencies that are expected by a typical patient as well as the organization which every professional is sanctioned and affiliated with? Today, the demands are increasingly high to start with. Competencies include professional skills which are basically elucidated in the following: In particular, there are a number of generally expected levels of knowledge, skills and attributes that are essential to providing competent mental health services. One must have the ability to evaluate new techniques, research, and knowledge as to their validity and applicability in working with people from all walks of life. 4. There must be a sort of internship that every specialist must go through; how did you get into the on-the-job-training and what kind of requirements that you must pass? Definitely, before one gets to practice what one has to specialize on, a mental health provider must successfully pass an on-the-job-training which is a comprehensive one. The more number of hours one has spent on an institution and the more variety of disorders or diseases that he/she has dealt with, so much the better. I happened to not only spent sufficient time with the National Institute for Mental Health and one of its affiliates where cases are more than adequate, the training was indeed very rigorous. The patients were closely monitored and so were our studies and follow-up done on the patients. Moreover, after my graduation, additional years of training in a private Mental Health Institution as a volunteer then as an employee working with over 400 patients. It was long and tedious but it was a very productive for me and now it is paying off. Cases include more the usual bulk of Schizophrenics, major depression and the manic depressive types. Of course, there were the walk-ins and those who had the illnesses as offshoots of drug addiction/dependence which are rampant and/or still prevalent today and sadly comprise much of the demographics. 5. Let us move on to the ethics of the profession. I have read that the effects of setting limits or boundaries in the therapeutic relationship are lessened effectiveness. What I mean is that due to the risks of being accused of malpractice or running the risks of being involved in a toxic relationship, the therapist must set limits or boundaries. The therapist even has to define many of these things at the outset or before the start of the helping relationship. However, this may mean the reduction of effective treatment to the patient or client. Is this is true with our experience? Why or why not? Indeed there have been certain times that when taken too far, several well-intentioned ethical guidelines can become transformed into artificial boundaries that serve as destructive prohibitions and thereby undermine clinical effectiveness. Rigid roles and strict codified rules of conduct between therapist and client can obstruct a clinicians artistry. Those anxious conformists who go entirely by the book, and who live in constant fear of malpractice suits, are unlikely to prove significantly helpful to a broad array of clients. It is my contention that one of the worst professional/ethical violations is to permit current risk-management principles to take precedence over humane interventions. 6. Could you please tell me what are some of the sensitive issues you’ve encountered so far in dealing with your patients? One example is transference. It is helpful in many ways but this is where certain limits or boundaries must be applied and the therapist must know when this must be in place. Other issues include countertransference, dual relationships, etc. Basic to the relationship between a therapist and a client is trust and this must be preserved all throughout. The respect between the parties is not to be taken for granted. The right to be informed of what the client must go through is critical as well. What really happens between a therapist and their client when transference is occurring? Transference is the displacement or transfer of feelings, thoughts and behaviors originally related to a significant person, such as a parent, onto someone else, such as the massage therapist. It is not a rational process. It is an unconscious process. It is created just by the fact that clients come in and take their clothes off, leaving them feeling more vulnerable at first. We become an authority figure or the expert in their eyes. We often become their parent in some ways. 7. Have you been in a malpractice suit or know of someone who had undergone this? Fortunately I have not gone through that and nobody I know of personally. 8. Let us go to the personal attributes that are generally found to be appealing and attractive for a would-be therapist. Can you enumerate some? Personal qualities that reflect â€Å"genuineness, empathy, nonpossessiveness, warmth,† and a capacity to respond flexibly to a range of possible solutions. Acceptance of ethnic differences between people. A willingness to work with clients of different ethnic backgrounds. Articulation and clarification of the worker’s personal values, stereotypes, and biases about his/her own and others’ ethnicity and social class. Also, recognizing ways that these views may accommodate or conflict with the needs of clients from different cultures. 9. Are they natural tendencies or must one acquire them in the process? Are these necessary for a successful practice? There are a few natural tendencies but the rest can be learned. 10. I see that communication plays a vital role. What are the nuances of communication necessary for a practitioner to inculcate? Obviously, the most fundamental function of any therapeutic session is communication. We all use verbal and non-verbal ways of expressing ourselves that have been influenced by the culture in which we were raised. These styles can vary dramatically for people from other backgrounds. For example: †¢ Personal Space: In the United States it is common for people to stand about 3 feet apart when having a personal conversation. In other cultures, people may typically stand close, which may feel awkward to someone unfamiliar with this style. †¢ Eye Contact and Feedback Behaviors: In the United States, individuals are encouraged to look each other directly in the eye and participate actively in feedback behaviors (leaning forward, smiling, nodding, etc. ). In contrast, people from other backgrounds may show respect or deference by not engaging in eye contact or participating more passively in their body language. †¢ Interruption and Turn-taking Behaviors: Most Americans have come to expect a conversation to progress linearly, while in other cultures it may be more natural for several people to be talking at once. Listening skills to deal with different turn-taking rules must be developed. †¢ Gesturing: Hand and arm gesturing can vary quite a bit in different cultural backgrounds. In general, extra gesturing should not necessarily be interpreted as excitement since it can just be an ordinary manner of communication, depending on the speaker. †¢ Facial Expression: Variance in this form of communication is also common, and again it is important to not assume that someone is cold or distressed based solely on one’s own cultural experience.