Tuesday 11 February 2014

INTERVIEWING IN SOCIAL WORK: A CONCEPTUAL NOTE

INTERVIEWING IN SOCIAL WORK: A CONCEPTUAL NOTE

Interviewing is the tool, which among all social work techniques is most constantly used. Social workers very frequently find themselves in need of inducing people to talk fully, freely, and truthfully.

Interview is defined as "a mutual view or sight; a meeting face to face; usually a formal meeting for consultation; for a conference; for eliciting information by questioning; an interview is a visit for the purpose of obtaining particulars respecting a person or his opinions" and attitudes.

From a common sense point of view interviewing seems to be a specialized form of conversation, through which experiences are exchanged, our attitudes are revealed, and our views are expressed.

A social worker may be trained, he may be experienced; but unless he is also a good interviewer, with all that the term implies, he cannot lay claim to that much higher qualification than merely conveyed by the words trained social worker.

There are three major functional types of interview, particularly in Social Case Work. Those are:
1. Diagnostic Interview,
2. Research Interview, and
3. Therapeutic Interview.

These are rarely mutually exclusive; elements of the diagnostic interview frequently enter into the therapeutic interview or into the research interview, and conversely. Social therapy, on the other hand, may start even with the first question of an interview which aims primarily to secure information, and the securing of information may not be complete even at the final therapeutic interview.

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