ABSTRACT
If you feel confident that you are ready to practice your interviewing skills, skip this chapter and proceed to the client profiles in chapters 3-22. If you prefer to review some basic interviewing skills before you begin to practice, then read the following descriptions of interviewing skills. They are only a small selection from a vast arena of useful interviewing skills. It is a bias of this text that intensely covering a small group of skills may produce a more competent beginning interviewer than briefly covering a larger set of skills. After mastering this short list, students can increase their repertoire fairly easily through direct instruction or further reading. The short list highlighted in this chapter will help the interviewer achieve the goals of the intake or initial interview, which include gaining an in-depth understanding of both client strengths and client weaknesses or areas of difficulty; and identifying, with the client, appropriate goals if treatment is recommended.
