How to Monitor an Interview

The now commonplace fishbowl of the counseling laboratory has a glamorous but precarious place in counselor education. The one-way screen or observation window is, at best, a mixed blessing. To the long established charge that counselors are “technique-happy” can now be added, with at least a grain of truth, the possibility that they have also become “gadget-happy.” Just as there has long been the threat of tests dominating the interview, now there is the threat that machines tape recorders and public address systems will dominate the counseling laboratory. No self respecting counselor educator would run a lab without these devices. Neither would he say he is yet getting full value out of the contrivances for the manifold purposes of instruction, supervision and control, not to mention administration and research. Reactions of the ‘‘performer” to these observation devices range from stagefright to showboating, with neither extreme helpful to the counselee. Expectations of the “viewers” range from passive entertainment to the vicarious thrill of spying, notoriously unproductive to either the counselor or the student. However, between these poles lies much room for real learning experience. The Number One problem in counselor education is not simply getting beyond the textbooks, finding the students, arranging the caseload, or planning case strategy but, rather, critically supervising the counselor’s interview performance so that he can learn something from it. Attempts of the laboratory director himself to monitor all interviews in progress or to listen to the playback of all recordings is futile in a large-scale program. Whether done individually or in group sessions, only a few interviews can be thoroughly covered each day, what with the director having concurrent administrative, teaching, research, and service duties. Saying to the practicum enrollee “You’re on your own go to work is not the answer. While there is no substitute for learning by doing, there are necessary additions to it. As a rule of thumb, any interview that is worth scheduling for learning purposes is worth careful monitoring.