PSYC201 Study Guide - Final Guide: Aust, Cognitive Restructuring, Headache
2 Jun 2018
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PSYC201 EXAM NOTES
Week 1:
Opening an interview –
• Be welcoming
• Use your name
• Reiterate your name/position/context
• Make the client feel comfortable
• What’s the purpose/process/time frame
• Confidentiality and its limits
• Cultural/disability issues
• Taking notes
Aim → to establish rapport and start to develop a working relationship, to help the client relax to
make it easier to discuss personal issues and to set the context in which presenting problem is
embedded
• Begin the interview by saying ‘Before we start talking about your concerns, I would like to
find out a little about your life. It is okay to ask you a few questions?”
• Ask specific questions in the following areas:
o Work and employment – how he/she likes this aspect of life
o Immediate family – names/ages
o Recreational activities/interests/sports
o Friends, supports, wide family, relatives
• Leave discussion of the problem to later in interview
• Observe patterns both verbal/non-verbal
• Problem stage:
o Aim is to obtain overview of presenting problem:
▪ “Thank you for telling me about yourself, so what brings you here today”
▪ Do not offer advice
▪ Maintain a neutral curiosity
▪ Use open ended questions
▪ Use attending and empathy skills
• Behavioural sequence stage:
o Aim is to understand specific example of the presenting problem
▪ Ask client to give example of specific example of problem that has occurred
in recent weeks
▪ Obtain a step by step description of what occurred from start to finish – ask
‘and what happened next/after that?’
▪ Convey empathy by suggesting possible emotions that your client may have
been feeling during the sequence e.g. ‘that would have been stressful for you’
• Patterns of behaviour stage:
o Aim is to understand broader patterns and links to the family
▪ Think about family dynamics that are operating and ask questions e.g. ‘when
you raise problems with your mum, how does she react?’
▪ Understand broad patterns by asking; ‘when did the problem begin? When is
the problem worst? What was happening around that time? Who is most
affected by it? Etc.
• Changed desired stage:
o Aim is to define an initial goal to see if you can help:
▪ ‘how would you like for things to be different?’
▪ What are you hoping I might be able to do for you?
▪ How would things have changed?
• Ending interview
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o Aim to bring interview to a close and validate the client
▪ Say ‘we need to stop now’
▪ List a range of feelings that your client may have experienced and normalise
these
▪ Affirm the person for coming to therapy and for ways in which they have
coped with these problems
▪ Maybe give summary drawing all key issues together, avoiding hint of blame
▪ If too early for that, suggest another session so that you get more info to fully
understand their concerns
Week 2:
Part 1: Theory Topic – evidence based practice in psychology
• How do we know what works and what is marketing or a myth?
• How to decide what to use?
o The problem = there are all sorts of therapies out there
• APA Task Force definition
o Evidence-based practice in psychology is the integration of the best available
research with clinical expertise in the context of patient characteristics, culture and
preferences
• EBPP – what are the dangers of not using this?
o Ethical issues
o Might not be beneficial for long-term problems such as trauma
• Common errors when looking at evidence
o Reliance on personal anecdotes and individual cases e.g. ‘that child made such an
amazing recovery’
o Confusing client satisfaction with clinical improvement e.g. ‘the family reported that
they found the treatment very helpful, and that they would recommend it to others’
o Failure to appreciate resilience and natural change over time e.g. ‘after three months
she was no longer depressed’
o Guru effect in choosing treatment e.g. ‘he has 20 years experience and specialized
training’
• What to look for in practice
o Interventions that have at least some scientific, empirical research for their efficacy
with the target population
o Evidence may be based on a variety of research designs e.g. randomized clinical
trial, controlled studies without randomization, open trials, multiple baseline, single
case study designs
o Quality of empirical support is important e.g. number of RCTs, replication by
independent groups, sampling, size, comparison treatment, effect size
• EBPP – the RCT
o Participants are randomly allocated to either an intervention or control group – this
allows the effect of the intervention to be studies in groups of people who are the
same, except for the intervention being studied
o Any difference observed can be attributed to the treatment rather than other
confounding factors (e.g. bias or chance).
• EBPP – Peer review process
o Look for studies that are published in peer reviewed journals
o The publication process is used to check the quality and importance of research
studies – it provides a wider check on the quality and interpretation of a study by
having other experts in the field review the research and conclusions
• Efficacy vs. effectiveness
o Efficacy = focuses on whether an intervention works under ideal and controlled
circumstances and looks at whether the intervention has any impact at all
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find more resources at oneclass.com
o Effectiveness = focuses on whether a treatment works when used in the real world
• Relevance to your work
o Evidence based practice is essential to work in nay setting – learning to evaluate
treatments is an important part of this work
o Use scientific databases, rather than the internet
o Critically evaluate what you read
Part 2: Attending
• Attending behaviour is defined as supporting your client with appropriate verbal following,
visuals, vocal quality and body language. Listening is the core skill of attending behaviour
and is central to building an empathic relationship with our clients.
• Listening skills (3V’s + B)
o Visual/eye contact
o Vocal qualities
o Verbal tracking
o Body language
• Attending skills
o Clients talk more freely
o Anticipate fewer eye contact breaks
o Expect a smoother vocal tone
o Anticipate more complete story with fewer topic jumps
o Expect more comfortable client body language
o Listen before you leap
• Visual eye contact
o Look at people when you speak to them
o Observe cultural differences in appropriate amounts of eye contact
o Maintain and break eye contact as needed for specific results
o Observe client pupil dilation
o Choose specific body language for desired results
• Vocal qualities
o Communicate warmth and interest with your choice
o You can make people feel that you are interested in what they have to say by altering
your vocal tone and speech rate
o Pitch
o Volume
o Rate
o Emphasis (verbal underlining)
o Breaks and hesitations
• Verbal tracking
o Verbal tracking is staying with the client’s story to encourage full elaboration of the
narrative – do not need to introduce a new topic
o Ask a question or make a brief comment regarding whatever the client has said in the
near past – build on the client’s topics
o Identify range of client concerns
o Note topic shifts
o Guide focus to critical client concerns
o Observe your own and client selective attention
• Body language
o Have attentive and authentic body language
o Face clients naturally, lean slightly forward, have an expressive face and use
encouraging gestures
o Be a real person in a real relationship – your authentic personhood is vital in the
helping relationship
o Practice the skills, be aware, and be respectful of individual and cultural differences
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Opening an interview : be welcoming, use your name, reiterate your name/position/context, make the client feel comfortable, what"s the purpose/process/time frame, confidentiality and its limits, cultural/disability issues, taking notes. Etc: changed desired stage, aim is to define an initial goal to see if you can help: If too early for that, suggest another session so that you get more info to fully understand their concerns. Listening is the core skill of attending behaviour and is central to building an empathic relationship with our clients. Week 3: empathy alliance" or working alliance": definition, empathy is critically important to the development of the relationship, the therapeutic, putting yourself into another person"s shoes" or viewing the world through. Interviewer says back accurately what the client has said. It is the most common and important counselor comment level. Attending is critical to developing and alliance recall 3vs and b. Don"t forget therapist qualities: non-judgemental, warm, genuine, collaborative, authentic.
