¶ … Interview
Intake Interview
The overall experience of conducting the intake assessment was a good and enlightening one. The interview itself felt very open and relaxed as my choice of the interviewee was a stranger, so there were no prior associative anxieties for either of us. Also, the interviewee seemed to have a very vivid imagination and attention to detail which helped in making the interview in-depth and thorough. During conducting the interview I felt like a natural in not only communicating the questions but in also taking down the notes on all the answers with important key words that I could clearly understand even after the interview ended. Another aspect I experienced as an interviewer was my ability to actually frame a few additional questions based on the response of the interviewee and not shying away from asking for help when I needed it -- whether this was in terms of asking for clarifications or definitions, etc.
Throughout the whole intake assessment, the most comfortable aspects for me included recording all the data and answers that were being given to me. Being a writer at heart, I thought initially that it might be hard for me to edit down the answer, but when it came down to crunch time in the interview, the pointers I made from start to finish actually helped me polish the final draft of the interview write-up. On the other hand, the least comfortable aspect for me was going around and selecting an interviewee. I felt like I needed someone who I did not know so that the interview would be candid to an extent, however, at the same time I also felt that there was no way of knowing how to...
I first looked over the questions thoroughly so if I was to encounter a brief session with a stranger where they asked about the sort of questions they would have to answer, I could honestly tell them some of the questions from the designated interview questions. This ensured that I would have an honest style approach. Furthermore, I decided to remain friendly and candid on a personal level -- revealing some aspects that were uncomfortable to me in relation to the interview so that the interviewee could relate to the awkwardness of the situation. Similarly, I wanted to add the reasons why I felt such an intake assessment was necessary so that the interviewee was able to gauge the kind of value I gave to the assessment. This style allowed me to put the interviewee first and allowed me to make him comfortable with the process from the get-go. Also, ensuring complete anonymity was part of my approach so as to ensure the interviewee that the assessment was purely for research purposes and no judgment would be passed on their account for revealing truthful aspects of their lives.
Some of my strengths in conducting an intake assessment include my writing and my style or approach to the interview. As aforementioned, one of my areas of concerns before conducting the intake assessment was that I would not be able to stop myself from writing every detail word by…
