Family Interview Reflection Paper

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I carried out a 25min-long interview with one of my classmates whose name is E.R. (from a different class) and her husband P.R. They both are Polish immigrants and currently living in a suburb of Chicago where dominantly Polish immigrants live. I visited them at their home to interview on the weekend. Before the interview, my classmate introduced her husband to me and had a chance to chat with them in advance. This was a warming process, which especially helped PR get to relax. Since he had not known so much about why I want to carry out an interview with them. Therefore, I explained them my goals.
I started my interview by introducing myself again and explaining confidentiality procedure. Although they were aware of that it would not be a deep family assessment or intense conversation about their relationship, I assumed that this part is especially important for P.R. I organized an interview format prior to the interview, which was made as if it is a beginning part of the standard couple interview. I did not strictly follow one specific theory, but after the interview, I noticed that most of my questions fit “Structural” and “Bowen” Family Theories. Thus, I asked them to tell me a little bit about themselves and their relationship. Then asked some culture related questions to get a better understanding of Polish culture and their perceptions/thoughts about their cultural identity. For example, some of my questions were: “How do you define a typical Polish Family? What part of your family is same or different from traditional Polish family? How did marriage affect your acculturation process in the US? In the second part, I attempted to understand their challenges and expectations at this stage and next stage of life.
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Therefore, I asked their daily tasks, the biggest challenges and expectation from the future. As recommended in the syllabus, I asked them what is different or same for how they had imagined their life at this point. In my opinion, my interview flow allowed them to think and review their relationship dynamic. Since most of the time, they indicated that they found my questions interesting and had not thought about it before. In the course of the interview, I stick to with my format; however, I should have focused on their needs and desire more. Also, my interview could have been more flexible and taken longer. Critique of interview Content Due to the fact that I interviewed with an immigrant couple, I tried to understand their cultural background and how they perceive and practice their traditions in the first step. I think, focusing on the cultural component was a good idea, since what I have learned about Polish Culture was surprising for me. I found out that unlike most of the European culture, they are more family oriented and collectivistic culture than I used to think. They keep in touch with family members so often and other family members play an important role in their life. This gives me an insight about how generalization could be dangerous in the counseling process. Secondly, I understand one more time how the larger systems affected individual’s relationship and life expectations. They both had imagined differently their life at this point. They had expected that would have gotten children at the beginning of the thirties, but career difficulties prevented them from having children. They also expressed that having kids and steady career are the biggest goals for the next five years. E.R and P.R also talked about how their job and school pace is so overwhelming. Therefore, they would like to slow it down and devote more time to themselves. Although I felt a little performance anxiety during the interview, I could utilize my attentive skills. I think my eye contact, body language, voice tone were at the acceptable level. I could establish a good rapport; therefore, it became a pleasant interview for us. On the other hand, working with two people is much harder than one. Paying attention of each person and the interaction between them require decent effort. Especially, many times I found myself focusing on the content rather than process. This is truly challenging for the family therapist, because it may prevent them from getting the essential information. So this might be the weakest part of my counseling skill yet. In addition, I could not get

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