A review by Anne Ramos Giquel
Introduction
This chapter of the “Handbook of Clinical Psychology Competencies” written by J. Christopher Young (clinical neuropsychologist), A. Gross (psychologist specialising in child behaviour problem) and A. Davidson (clinical psychologist), aims to help psychologists and future psychologists to have a better understanding of the specificities of a clinical interview with children. More precisely, the authors try to give clinicians a general guideline of the most important things to think about when working with children.
Content of the article
For Young and al., interviewing children entails different dimensions which are essential for the clinician and are important to take into account to better understand the child’s needs.
First, it is important to have a overall view of the specificities of children, which includes their age development, that is to say motor development, communication, cognitive ability, adaptive and social skills, which does not always correspond to their actual age. It also includes their culture (i.e. is there a need for a translator ? What are the cultural distinctiveness ? etc.), or the diagnostics specific to children, because children can have a diagnostic with features that differ from those of adults.
Second, the authors support the fact that clinicians should pay close attention to the structure of the interview when faced with children. Would it be better to use a structural, a semi-structural or a non-structural interview ? What problems could arise and from what cause ? For instance, a clinician should know how to explain the confidentiality clause and its limits both to the child and to his/her parents, accounting for the possibility of disclosing some private information about the child to the benefit of the parents or of some other professionals when permission was explicitly asked for and granted. The clinician could also take upon himself to question the presence of the parents as necessary or not, and to directly ask the child if they accepted it, among other things. Another example of the structure specificity for Young et al. (2010) is what format to use when asking questions to the child : should it be open-ended questions which could be difficult to answer for young children or children with poor cognitive capacities, or should it be close-ended questions which are easier to answer but lead to more suggestive answers and offer less information ? The structure also includes the question of the environment which has to be organised according to the age and needs of the child/adolescent, such as the presence of toys, of pen and paper to draw, or simply as a typical office for a teenager for who such childish objects could be an issue.
Third, from the viewpoint of the authors, it is important to take into account the specificities of some particular interview such as one with a suicidal child during which it is important to be aware of the risks and warning signs in the child (e.g. having a detailed and achievable plan to commit suicide). Another example would be with a difficult child who refuses to work with the clinician during the interview, or even a forensic interview where, for instance, it is important for the clinician to be careful to get information which is not a false statement.
Critical evaluation
The clinical interview of children is a major area of interest for most psychologists on the field. Thus, this paper is a great synthesis of the “Interviewing the children” work field. The concrete examples of clinical situations it gives make it easier to understand the subject. The style of writing is rather clear. Moreover, it gives its readers an atheoretical point of view which can easily be adapted according to each clinician’s approach and to the characteristic pieces of information obtained in their daily work. Indeed, the authors use the DSM as a background guideline, which is an atheoretical nosography, but they however remain critical about its limits such as cultural considerations for instance. Because this chapter is very generic, its many different parts cannot be explained in details and would need more research: the goal of this article is to provide a general outlines for helping clinicians to research various topics in the literature that could help them to better understand a child’s individuality. In point of fact, the article in itself is not enough to work with and should only be considered as a basis further research.
Conclusion
This chapter highlights the importance of doing research on the population you may happen to work with. As a matter of fact, I found it very interesting because it offers general guidelines on the different specificities of working with children, as well as different ideas or hypothesis to guide our research when necessary. The fact that it is also atheoretical allows us to adapt it to our own approach. Moreover, as previously stated, it is easy to read, which is why from my own point of view, this type of article is needed on different subjects and populations.
Words I have learned:
- The core proficiencies : Les compétences de base
- Impede : Empêcher
- Convey : Transmettre
- To disclose : Divulguer
- The clinician should have covered the bounds of confidentiality at the outset of the interview : Le clinicien devra avoir abordé les limites de la confidentialité au début de l’entretien.
Reference :
Young, J. C., Davidson, J. A., & Gross, A. M. (2010). Clinical Interviewing with Children. In J. C. Thomas & M. Hersen (Eds.), Handbook of Clinical Psychology Competencies (p. 209‑236). Springer New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09757-2_8