Abstract
This is the fifth edition of a book first published in 1972 and which formed the practice base of several generations of social workers. It is a comprehensive presentation of the techniques of social work interview, which goes from examining how communication occurs, to the phases of interviewing process, termination, and evaluation. The authors updated the content of the 1997 edition by incorporating more recent research findings and issues on cross-cultural interviewing of the elderly and of racial/ethnic and sexual minority clients.
The book is structured in four parts. Part 1 is a thorough discussion of concepts of interviewing, communication, silence, and listening. It provides a detailed comparison between a social work interview and a social conversation and looks into nonverbal communication and the process of establishing a relationship. A large space is allocated the conventional model of communication (encoding, transmitting, and decoding; manifest and latent content, barriers to effective communication). This section is followed by an extensive analysis of the nonverbal layer of communication, as given by chronemics (the management of time as an act of communication), artifactuals (the language of objects), proxemics (the language of speech and distance), smell, touch, and kinesics. Finally, the authors explore the process of establishing a relationship, which includes issues of empathy, confidentiality, and the need to act respectful and accepting.
Part 2 looks into the dynamics of the social work interview: the introductory phase, the problem exploration, the developmental phase, termination, and evaluation. It discusses various techniques, such as reflection and paraphrase, questioning, summarizing, transition, clarification, silence, humor, confrontation, and so on. The authors make a case for a “blended interviewing style” that legitimizes the use of closed questions when it is needed to deepen the content following early-stage, open-ended questions.
Under the heading “special problems in interviewing,” Part 3 discusses cross-cultural interviewing. Authors examine interviewing with individuals of racial/ethnic minorities, sexual minority clients, and elderly. The analysis looks into the strategies for reducing the implicit bias by perspective taking and self-awareness at racism, heterosexism, and ageism. A brief section touches upon the skills in the interpreted interviewing. The section on problematic interviewing replaces the conventional dichotomy voluntary versus involuntary interviewees by considering the various degrees of involuntariness. The “child sexual abuse interview” revolves around the notion of “open-minded neutrality” (p. 332) and the need to give children the control over the content, peace, and method of disclosure.
Part 4 reviews antithetically the attitudes, skills, and behaviors that distinguish between the more competent from the less competent interviewers. The appendix presents a full interview from beginning to termination and includes interviewers’ comments and reflections on her choices. Ending the volume with a consistent case material consolidates the techniques presented previously.
Overall, the book provides a genuine view on social work. By providing citations from problematic interview situations, together with workers’ introspective comments, it overcomes a level of normativeness which is often inherent in social work textbooks. It opens the content toward discussing “common errors,” “barriers,” “inappropriate responses,” “caveats,” and so on. This choice adds a layer of authenticity and infuses the idea that interviewing is a learning process, always prone to inadequacies and able to inspire self-analysis. Although practitioners may be familiar with much of the book content, this feature makes it particularly valuable and does a great service in the training of self-reflective professionals.
In the same vein, the book engages with some of the tensions inherent in social work profession, such as the Rogerian “unconditional positive regard” by arguing that a totally nonjudgmental stance is unrealistic. This edition is also illuminating in regard to other contentious issues, like clinician’s self-disclosure and offering advice. In discussing this, the authors move the debate on self-disclosure from an either/or choice, on how to self-disclose. In a similar way, the book is not prescriptive, but realistic when conceding that advice is used in social work, but it needs to meet several conditions to be efficacious (to be grounded in research, to have the appropriate level of directiveness, to respond to client’s request, and not to an intrinsic need of the worker, etc.).
The book integrates several crosscutting themes. One is the need to interview with a purpose and to avoid prioritizing interviewers’ expectations and views at the expense of the interviewees’ concerns. Another is an encouraging focus on worker’s behavior during the interview. It replaces the so-frequent lament regarding the unequal power dynamics likely to affect positive relationships: “once the interview begins, the most potent factor determining the behavior of one participant is the behavior of the other” (p. 119). Ultimately, the entire content provides a strong basis for the development of practitioners’ self-assessment.
Each chapter contains references to meta-analyses or systematic reviews on the factors related to interviewing and the way they influence positive outcomes of therapies. Yet, the book remains unclear about how different theoretical orientations are reflected in interviewing. While it is meticulously discussing the technical issues of questions formatting, it rarely engages with the deeper theoretical rationales for asking some questions and not others. It may also be that this edition lost the opportunity to reflect some of the recent developments in interviewing, such as the integration of assessment with treatment. Also, while the book is centered on the individual clients, it lets the reader expect more on the ways of involving families and peers in the interview. At another level of analysis, this edition perpetuates (although to a less extent) some less actual or plainly obsolete references or debates (e.g., testing the accessibility of social work agencies by a “group of well-educated volunteers, competent in the use of the telephone and with easy access to it” (p. 121)).
All things considered, the book provides a rigorous intellectual base for social workers learning about the techniques of interviewing. Written in an accessible language, the book takes the reader through a meticulous array of techniques involved in individual interviewing. By discussing problematic interview situations, it instills a professional habit of self-assessment among its readers. It would well serve students and in-service social workers, but its content is relevant for other human service interviewers, as well. This fifth edition has the attributes that legitimize a high position in a social work reading list and strengthen the professional profile of the discipline.