Why is the in-depth interview essential in intercultural counseling?

Answer 1

The in-depth interview is essential in intercultural counseling to determine many of the iceberg issues that may affect communication and cooperation in health care, including ethnicity, age, degree of acculturation or bicultural adaptation, socioeconomic status, health condition, religious affiliation, educational background, group membership, sexual orientation, or political affiliation. However, a client may believe that personal questions about his background are invasive or unnecessary, especially if he comes from a high-context culture. Direct inquiry may even suggest to the client that the practitioner is incompetent because she cannot determine the problem through indirect methods.

One culturally sensitive approach is the respondent-driven interview, in which simple, open-ended questions by the provider initiate conversation. The client can express her understanding and experience in her own words. The practitioner exerts little control over the flow of the response, yet elicits data through careful prompting
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