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Hately 1 Interview and Counseling Session
Based on an actual practice trial
Laura Hately
University of Central Florida Hately 2 Abstract
Counseling has a multitude of benefits ranging from helping a client dissect a problem,
guiding them to figure out a solution, providing methods in handling life traumatic events and so
much more. By exploring new techniques open minded therapist, counselors, helpers etc. may
gain new tools to add to their therapy session tool kits that may assist with clients who may be
resistant to older methods. An interview session was conducted in private hospital room setting
via permission of the client. He was informed that all personal information will remain
anonymous. Majority of new therarpy techniques were refrained from use but further researched
and discussed. In the interest of the clients well-being and due to his prognosis a majority of the
questions were focused on gaining background information while actiinely listiening and
promoting trust between helper and helpee.
Keywords: Positive Psychology, Suicidality, Counseling, Spirituality, Multimodal therapy Hately 3 Interviewing and Counseling Interview
Based on an Actual Trial While being asked to be a sitter for Backer Act patient an opportunity presented itself to
be able to use skills gained through the Interview and Counseling course. Patient was asked if an
interview and counseling session could be conducted. He was notified that all questions asked
were for educational purposes only and by no means was the interviewer a licensed therapist. He
was notified that all his personal information would remain confidential and he would be under
an alias name. The setting of the interview was conducted in a private hospital room. The script
included is not a mock interview but an actual interview granted by the patient. Due to his
prognosis questions were kept simple. The patient had tried to end his life by ingesting onehundred Tylenols.
Before asking permission to conduct an interview I took the time to get the patient
comfortable with me. At the time, the patient was watching Batman Verses Superman on the
television while I sat across the room from him observing and reading a book. We then engaged
in a conversation about the movie and what marvel characters we liked. He was quite friendly
and soft spoken. It was difficult to hear him fully because of his low-pitched voice. I then
proceeded to move the chair closer to him and sat facing towards him to give visual clues that I
was fully engaged and listening. He then proceeded to ask what I was studying and what school I
attended. I informed him that I was taking my last two courses this summer at UCF to finish my
Bachelor’s in Psychology. I then asked if he wouldn’t mind helping me with an assignment for a Hately 4 class. I told him I needed to do a practice session that involved interviewing and possibly
counseling a volunteer. I explained that all his information would remain confidential. It is of
upmost importance that the client gives some form of written or oral consent and is documented
as stated in the rules of the American Psychological Association (Ethical, 2010). Once he gave
me verbal permission I notified him the types of questions that may be asked and told him he had
the right to not answer if they made him feel uncomfortable as well as end the session at any
point in time. He understood and decided to continue with the interview. At the time, I had my
backpack and in it a file with the printed-out questions on the module for interviewing. I used
this as a starting point. Session
On June 3rd, 2017 @ 10:00pm an interview and counseling session was held in a private
hospital room while the patient was in a hospital bed. The interviewer sat close in proximity to
the patient while facing him. The door was slightly cracked due to Backer Act patient policy of
the hospital. Thomas, real name protected for privacy, is an eighteen-year-old black male.
Progress notes in his chart stated he had ingested a hundred Tylenols in a suicide attempt. His
mother came home to him throwing up and he was immediately rushed to the hospital where he
confessed to his actions. After becoming stable he was then moved from the ER to a private
room. I was assigned the task as a nursing assistant to sit with the patient to prevent him from
any further attempts of self-harm.
The first part of the session were basic background questions to become familiar of the
patient’s demographics. These basic questions also allowed him become more comfortable with Hately 5 me. He currently lives with his Aunt from his mother’s side and mother in a low income and
heavily drug as well as crime infested neighborhood. They had moved in December roughly six
months ago from a good neighborhood so he states. His family is originally from Haiti and
moved to Florida back in 2008. He states he learned most of his English while growing up
through English cartoon shows on his own. When asked where his father currently resided he
states he lives back in Haiti and he visits him from time to time in the summer. When asked what
his relationship was like with his father he states that he doesn’t have a real relationship with his
biological father and he can’t open to him like he did with his step farther. Upon hearing him use
past tense about his step father I explored this relationship further. He seemed a little sad when
mentioning his step farther. His mother married his step-father back in 2012. His step father was
a police officer on a SWAT team. He states he was killed a year and a half ago by brutally being
shot nineteen times in the line of duty. He said his mother has had a difficult time dealing with it.
He was a good friend to his mother for a very long time before they got married. He stated the
step-fathers mother died shortly after due to heartbreak. There was a long pause afterwards. At
this point in time besides visual cues of head nodding I remained silent. “Remember that if
clients fall silent…, then it is not your turn to communicate again until they have. An easy, if
overly simple, quotation to remember for this is, the client owns the silence” (Cochran &
Cochran, 2015). He began telling how people would asked if he cried at all. He said of course he
cried because he was very close to him and he was the only person that would not only listen to
him but understood him completely. If I did not offer that moment of silence he may have not
open to me about this so it’s important to offer them that moment so the client may given time to
reflect and share. Hately 6 I decided it was time change the subject to a more positive topic. I have learned through
positive psychology the importance of focusing on an individual’s strengths rather than just their
negative aspects. “Rather than investigating individual weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and mental
illness, positive psychology promotes the understanding of human virtues and strengths such as
creativity, hope, future, courage, and forgiveness” (Wingate, et al.). I asked him how was school
going? He said he was in a charter school and he was slowly falling behind graduating.
Apparently, the classes are designed to go at your own pace and students can graduate earlier or
later if they would like. I asked what were his goals outside of graduation and what he plans on
doing next. He states he wants to work for the space center as an astral space engineer. He
proceeded to describe the job. He describes his frustration towards his mother who would rather
he stay here locally yet he would like to explore his college options outside of Florida. Again,
instead of focusing on the negative I practiced silence and used visual nodding to show I was
listening. After a moments pause I added encouragement towards his goals. He seemed quite
passionate about the space program but upset that he was behind. I remembered a quote that
someone once told me when I felt that I was taking too long in school to finish. I was very
careful not to project my own personal issues but simply stated with a little bit of alteration “It
does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop” on your dreams ()
Finally, after a few moments of off topic discussions to break the air I felt it was time to
ask the difficult question as to what brought him here today. I informed him I have been notified
of the situation but if he would feel comfortable in putting it in his own words I would gladly
listen to his side of the story. He felt comfortable with me at this point for it had been over an
hour in the session. He stated that once his mom left the house he had swallowed a hundred
Tylenols then fell asleep. However, after two hours he thought he heard someone calling his Hately 7 name as if to attempt to wake him up. Once awoken he threw up and shortly after his mother
arrived home and he confessed to what he had done. He was then rushed to the hospital.
I resisted interrupting because at this point I wanted to ask why he attempted to end his
life but learned that this is inappropriate to ask. I practiced mindfulness to help my thoughts and
questions to be more centered. “Recent research demonstrates that our mind wanders
approximately 47% of the time” (Ivtzan & Lomas, 2016). I simply stated, “I see”. He felt that
something was trying to tell him is wasn’t his time to go. Eventually I asked what made him feel
that he should end his life. I can detect hesitation and resistance from him to get into detail. He
only states “issues, problems” then quickly changed the subject. I stated he did not have to
answer the question. He then said that these issues can get dealt with. Since this was my first
session ever I felt it was important for him to speak to a professional in regards to his suicide
attempt. We went back to discussing school. I inquired as to what school he was interested in. He
wasn’t sure what programs were offered. Together we researched potential college programs that
would fit his goals. I wanted to at least provide him a goal to focus on so he may feel he has a
puropose. I felt this is something that we could accomplish together with just one session. Summary
There is a common misconception that positive psychology only focuses on the positives.
“Rather, positive psychologists are concerned with building strengths and the best things life
must offer as they are with managing weaknesses and repairing the worst things in life”
(Magyar-Moe, Owens, & Conoley, 2015). I had learned a valuable lesson with another client on
a past assignment. I had to play a psychologist for a day and perform a psychological evaluation. Hately 8 He was depressed and using drugs to cope with his problems. Upon administering
neuropsychological tests and asking questions he stopped me in the middle. He asked why did all
the questions focused on the negative aspects of him. He stated the test made him feel worse off.
He wanted to know why they did not focus on what he was capable of, his strengths. I agreed
with him. While it’s important not to shy away from the root causes of negative behaviors yet, to
focus solely on the negative aspects tends to make clients feel a sense of unworthiness, so he
stated. As much as I wanted to explore the suicide attempt of my recent client I felt I did not have
the training nor expertise to investigate deeply into this with him. I was also aware I would not
be to be able to contact him after this. He was to be admitted to South Seminole Hospital for
another three days for therapy so I felt this topic would be explored further by professionals.
However, after my counseling session I dived right into researching suicide. I feel it’s an
important topic to become familiar with to better prepare myself for such situations. Armed with
what I now know I would have liked to have explored his connections to emotional support. This
area is one that is greatly missed when assessing clients (Paulson & Worth, 2002). The need for
emotional support needs to be established for suicidal patients so they may have someone to
reach out in times of distress. This client has had quite a few rough years with the passing of his
step-father in a violent manner whom was his strong emotional support. Along with that
uprooting to a destructive social environment and possibly loosing contact with what friends he
did have to communicate with added to his loneliness.
I contemplated the client’s thoughts on spirituality. Also, not an area I am too familiar
with I wonder if he would have not benefited from linking what he may have thought was a spirit
attempting to save his life to spirituality. When he described the incident where he felt he heard
someone calling his name as if to wake him. He described it as if it was informing him it was not Hately 9 his time to go. Although I did not get a chance to discuss his spiritual beliefs he hinted the idea or
belief in spirits. Dr. Jeff Levin has a theoretical perspective on faith. He explains in his
theoretical model, “religious faith may create positive expectations that prevent or ameliorate
psychological distress” (Levin, 2009). Perhaps exploring the client’s spiritual beliefs and
possibly relating them to his recent belief may have enhanced his faith and guided him to a
spiritual practice to fall upon in times of distress. This is an old age remedy but something that
has been less practiced in our current modern times. “At the beginning of this decade, a
comprehensive overview found over 1,200 empirical studies of religion and health that have
been published in the peer-reviewed literature. According to various reviews, between three
quarters and more than 90% of these studies obtained positive findings, depending upon the
health outcome in question” (Levin, 2009). This area of spirituality as a tool for therapy and
healing is still in the theoretical phase but current research shouldn’t be ignored yet explored
further.
Conclusion
I think it is important to explore more than on avenue of therapy modalities. Each client
has a unique set of behaviors, social upbringing, emotions, values, opinions, interpersonal
relationships etc. Adapting and altering the way we tend to help clients would better serve their
unique needs. I believe each client can also teach us a new perspective. Being mindful and open
to different perspective is a quality I personally believe that needs to be harnessed in therapist,
counselors and helpers alike. Multimodal therapy developed by Arnold Lazarus is technically
eclectic approach he describes as “a flexible, personalized approach to helping in which the
helper uses a combination of techniques from different theoretical approaches without
necessarily subscribing to their principal beliefs. The selection of techniques fits the treatment to Hately 10 the needs and individual characteristics of each client” (Okun & Kantrowitz, 2015). Being able
to adapt to our clients’ needs and learning to adjust the traditional with new therapeutic
modalities when the client is becoming unresponsive is something I have gained through this
course.
APPENDIX, TRANSCRIPT:
Client: Did you see Wonder Woman yet?
Counselor: Yeah, I saw the new Wonder Woman yesterday actually. I thought it was
pretty good.
Client: Really? I heard that too. I can’t wait for the new Avengers movie to come out
Counselor: Me too it looks like a good one….a brief pause…So what brought you here to
the hospital today?
Client: Excuse me?
Counselor: I was already told briefly of the situation but maybe you can tell me in your
own words what brought you here today.
Client: Well…hesitant at first…I had swollowed a bottle of Tylenol. My mom had just
left the house for groceries. I just went to sleep but then a couple of hours later it was like
someone was calling my name. I woke up and then threw up several times on the floor of my
bedroom. (Client falls silent for a period) My mom came home and she took me to the hospital.
Counselor: so, you swallowed a whole bottle of Tylenol, threw it up and then your mom
upon arriving found you throwing up and took you to the hospital.
Client: Yeah, she wasn’t too happy about that. Hately 11 Counselor: Was it your mother that called out your name? (Clarification)
Client: I heard someone call my name but no one was there when I woke up. I guess it
just wasn’t my time.
Counselor: Do you mean that something unnatural called out your name?
Client: Maybe it was a spirit or guardian angel. I don’t know. All I know was I heard my
name being called out as if they were trying to wake me. It wasn’t my mom because she came
home several moments later.
Counselor: I see Hately 12 Work Cited
Cochran, J. L., & Cochran, N. H. (2015). The heart of counseling: counseling skills
through therapeutic relationships. New York: Routledge.
Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. (2010, June 01). Retrieved June
03, 2017, from http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/
Ivtzan, I., & Lomas, T. (2016). Mindfulness in Positive Psychology. Oxon, NY:
Routledge.
Levin, J. (2009). How Faith Heals: A Theoretical Model. EXPLORE: The Journal of
Science and Healing, 5(2), 77-96. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2008.12.003
Magyar-Moe, J. L., Owens, R. L., & Conoley, C. W. (2015). Positive Psychological
Interventions in Counseling. The Counseling Psychologist, 43(4), 510.
doi:10.1177/0011000015573776
Okun, B. F., & Kantrowitz, R. E. (2015). Effective helping: interviewing and counseling
techniques. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
Paulson, B. L., & Worth, M. (2002). Counseling for Suicide: Client Perspectives. Journal
of Counseling & Development, 80(1), 86-93. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6678.2002.tb00170.x Hately 13 Wingate, L. R., Burns, A. B., Gordon, K. H., Perez, M., Walker, R. L., Williams, F. M., &
Joiner, T. E. (n.d.). Suicide and Positive Cognitions: Positive Psychology Applied to the
Understanding and Treatment of Suicidal Behavior. Cognition and suicide: Theory, research, and
therapy., 261-283. doi:10.1037/11377-012
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