IV. Family history:
- Parents’ age, occupation, their personality, their roles in the family, the
client’s relationship with parents, family members, other relatives. - Name and age of siblings, their social and professional situation.
- Nervous or organic diseases in client’s family.
- Family professional history, their degree of occupational and geographic
stability, the way these elements have affected the client.
V. Personal history:
- Medical history: unusual diseases, accidents, etc. from prenatal period to
present. - Education: schools, incidents (drop-out, missing classes, expelling,
particularities of the relationships with colleagues and teachers). - Military record.
- Professional history: jobs and relationships with colleagues and superiors.
- Sexual and marital history: significant problems during sexual maturation,
engagements, marriages, divorces, the reason for the last separation,
disappointments, frustrations. Does the client have children? - Alcohol, drugs and medicine addiction.
- Previous counselling experience.
- What is the client’s personal goal? What does the client want in life?
VI. Description of client during interview:
Non-verbal elements (clothing, gestures, facial expression, eye contact,
visible personal effects), para-verbal (tone, timbre, intensity of voice), others:
motivation, commitment, openness, flexibility, emotional availability,
general culture, vocabulary, technical terms, practical communication
abilities.VII. Summary and recommendations:
The counsellor formulates conclusions and expresses possible relationships
between the client’s problem and the other elements described by the client
throughout the interview. How realistic is the client’s reason to seek
counselling? Is a referral to another counsellor necessary (if here the level of
expertise is insufficient)? The counsellor presents a possible scenario for
future exchanges and their approximate number.
(Adapted from Hackney and Cormier, 1996)