Open-Ended Reflection Paper

The first skill that was used to engage my client was using an open ended question at the beginning of my interview. According to Hohman (2002), “open-ended questions are those that have a variety of possible answers and do not limit the client” (p.20) using this strategy allows the client to explore his own thoughts and it encourages the client to do most of the talking. I started my conversation with my client by asking a simple open question for example “how was his day going ?” later I saw myself asking deeper questions such as “You mention that your brother is an alcoholic, how is your relationship with your brother?” this allowed me to listen to my client story in his own words and to keep the interviewing flowing. Open-ended questions play a critical role in MI, it allows the social worker to get to know the client and to identify the several topics that the …show more content…
Second skill used during my interview with my client was reflecting listening. According to Rosengren (2009), “reflective listening involves making statements, not questions” (p.34) this skill is critical for MI it allows the social worker to understand the speaker’s idea and confirm if the concept has been understood correctly. Reflecting listening is composed of two types of reflections, “simple and complex” that can be used to encourage the client to talk more about in depth, and help the social worker to exposed the client concerns. After carefully analyzing the interview and calculating my score using the MITI 4.21 coding sheet the use of simple reflections and complex reflections was used 33 % during the interview process. These results also indicated a ratio for reflections to question was 1.2.1, as results the three were