Clinical Interviewing

3 Pages 672 Words

Given the specific situation of having a limited amount of therapy sessions, it would be difficult in being able to take time in the exploration stage. Naturally, I would reserve the first two sessions for the exploration stage only, given that the reason for the clients visits are not due to more difficult problems (i.e. suicide, rape, multiple personalities). Although other disorders/illnesses are relevant, more severe reasons for therapy sessions may reserve more sessions in the exploration stage due to the severity. It may be more difficult for a person who was rapped as a child to express their feelings and think of the complexity of their problems than it would for a mother who is feeling depressed because her child left the home. Again, every situation is different, and this is a generalization.
Before being able to move on, I as a therapist, would need to feel confident in the reliability of the clients thoughts and feelings. The client must be able to explore throughout his/her problems without hesitation. Because the action and insight stage are more difficult to complete, there must be a good level of rapport before proceeding onto the next levels. Due to the time restraint, it would be necessary to proceed with a good level of rapport instead of a strong one. I would need to know the details of the particular problem the client is facing, what current mental and medical status the client is in, and lastly, what particular goals the client has set to reach by attending therapy. If the goals far exceed what I may be able to touch upon within the given time, I would express my concerns with the patient and explain that there are only 10 approved sessions, that we would work through as many “issues” as we could, but I would then recommend the patient attending more sessions if he/she could afford to do so. Because it would do more harm than good for a therapist to brush upon subjects a client may bring up due to the time ...