Exam 4: Getting Started: How to Pay Attention to What the Client Wants

When clients state that others in their lives are causing their problems and, therefore, there is little that they can do to solve them, De Jong and Berg suggest that it is useful for practitioners to challenge such a point of view as self defeating because it leaves clients' situations unchanged.

The authors state that asking clients about how they spend most of their work-day time is a useful way in which to uncover what is important to clients and some of their strengths.

In solution-focused interviewing, the interviewer works with clients using classifications of client problems developed by theorists in the helping professions.

Part of the rationale for asking clients what they have already tried to solve their problems is to send the message that the interviewer believes they are competent to make good things happen in their lives.

Steve de Shazer argues that what practitioners have interpreted in the past as client resistance is more accurately understood as worker resistance to solving problems in ways which fit clients' normal ways of doing things.

Working within the client's frame of reference means asking for, listening to, and affirming the client's perceptions, all the while taking note of the words which the client uses to capture her perceptions.

In solution-focused interviewing, practitioners often take a break after interviewing the client about their concerns, goals, and strengths in order to think about what the client has said and to formulate some end-of-session feedback for the client before ending the interview.

In order to have a cooperative, working relationship with a client in solution-focused work, which must be present?

In the case of Beth in the text, when she finished working with Insoo, she could best be described as a client who:

In solution-focused interviewing, practitioners try to maintain a "not knowing" stance except in cases where clients say they want something which practitioners strongly believe is not good for them.

In the case of Beth, Insoo and Beth moved toward a cooperative working relationship by focusing primarily on:

In the case of Beth, it was helpful for the social worker to point out the facts of the case from the police and hospital reports.

De Jong and Berg believe that an interviewer can take both a not-knowing stance with clients and, at the same time, hold them accountable for their perceptions.

In the case of Beth in the text, when she was first talking to the social worker, she could best be described as a client who:

Which of the following is not addressed in the "getting started" phase of solution-focused work?

According to the authors, one way to respond to a client who continues to blame others for her or his problems is to ask the client: "How were you hoping I might be useful to you?"