Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Need to Move Beyond Standardized Methods
- 2 What Is the Clinical Interview? Where Did It Come From? Why Do It?
- 3 What Happens in the Clinical Interview?
- 4 Not a Cookbook: Guidelines for Conducting a Clinical Interview
- 5 Evaluating Clinical Interviews: How Good Are They?
- 6 Toward the Future: The Clinical Interview and the Curriculum
- Appendix: Transcript of the Interview with Toby
- Notes
- References
- Index
2 - What Is the Clinical Interview? Where Did It Come From? Why Do It?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Need to Move Beyond Standardized Methods
- 2 What Is the Clinical Interview? Where Did It Come From? Why Do It?
- 3 What Happens in the Clinical Interview?
- 4 Not a Cookbook: Guidelines for Conducting a Clinical Interview
- 5 Evaluating Clinical Interviews: How Good Are They?
- 6 Toward the Future: The Clinical Interview and the Curriculum
- Appendix: Transcript of the Interview with Toby
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
Now from the very first questionings I noticed that though [the standardized] tests certainly had their diagnostic merits, based on the numbers of successes and failures, it was much more interesting to try to find the reasons for the failures. Thus I engaged my subjects in conversations patterned after psychiatric questioning, with the aim of discovering something about the reasoning process underlying their right, but especially their wrong answers. I noticed with amazement that the simplest reasoning task … presented for normal children … difficulties unsuspected by the adult.
Piaget, “Autobiography”The previous chapter argued that traditional research and assessment methods involving standardized administration are often inadequate for understanding the complexities and dynamics of the child's mind. The theme of this chapter is that the cognitive tradition provides the theoretical rationale for an alternative method which can help us achieve the goal of gaining insight into the child's mental constructions. The clinical interview, a class of powerful techniques, can help us enter the child's mind.
In this chapter I begin by presenting examples of clinical interviews, so as to highlight key features, including their flexibility and ethic of respect. Next I describe the ideas of three seminal cognitive theorists — Freud, Piaget, and Vygotsky — who provide the theoretical rationale for use of clinical interview methods.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Entering the Child's MindThe Clinical Interview In Psychological Research and Practice, pp. 30 - 69Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997