Jordan Johnson

Interview Project: Part 2

Communication 1010-008
February 21, 2016
Interview Analysis Memo
DATE: February 21, 2016
TO: David Gagon
FROM: Jordan Johnson
SUBJECT: Interview Analysis Memo, COMM 1010-008
I had the opportunity to interview a former Individual and Family Therapist that was
employed at the Residential Treatment Center, New Haven. She is the mother of peer of
mine and arranged the interview with her assistance.
I have been trying to decide what I want to major in and because of my phycology class I
took last winter semester, I wanted to learn more about specific fields within psychology and
what they actually do. During the interview I found out that my interviewee is actually a
former therapist because she didn't feel like she was helping as many people as she
wanted to with her degree. Now, she uses her degree along with her teaching career to
better help her students and she can see signs of struggles and can properly inform parents
instead of just writing off the child as a trouble student. I became intrigued, her reasons for
going into therapy were similar to mine and she had a very interesting story as to how she is
doing something else she loves but also using her experience as a therapist. She gave me
a lot of advice and information to think about so I am now re-thinking whether to go into
psychology or not.
This memo summarizes the useful advice I accumulated and analyzes what I learned from
conducting the interview.
Summary of Lessons Learned
Getting Started in the Medical Field
I learned that Social Work can be a very stressful field. You constantly must be studying and
obtaining more education. You also have to be working on your own mental heath so you
can leave your problems at the door to be able to help the client with as much love and as
objectively as possible. I also learned that If I wanted to pursue a career in social work I
should decide where I want to live and then look at what the market for specific jobs are
available there. She wanted to be a family therapist, but there isn't much of an opportunity
for a job here in Utah.

I learned after speaking with Val, that its very difficult to transition to other fields without
additional schooling because the degree is too specific. The more we spoke about it, it
seemed more and more daunting to go into social work but I like how she uses her degree
as a teacher, to help her be more useful and helpful to more kids than when she worked
only at the Residential Treatment Center.
She has had a total of 14 years of education resulting in 1 Batchelor and 2 Masters
Degrees and various endorsements including English, Math and ESL.
A Typical Day
When I asked about what a typical day was like at New Haven, her response was a rush of
duties, making schedules for various meetings with families, appointments and unplanned
job requirements specific to that facility, long workdays that don't actually end when your
shift ends. In short it sounded stressful. She emphasized the need to be able to separate
your family life and work life. She explained the importance of understanding and preventing
Transference (When the client projects emotions on the counselor because they have
attributes of someone in their life) and Counter Transference (When the counselor projects
reversely onto the patient). The most difficult tasks, were dealing with the parents who don't
feel responsible for their Childs problems making it difficult for the kid to make full recoveries
because even though they make progress at the facility, their home environment never
changes and all their work and progress just unravels upon returning home. The thing she
found most easy to do was building a relationship of trust with the girls so they would
actually open up to her during sessions. She was able to achieve this closeness because it
was an actual residential treatment center where the girls lived and went to school as they
worked on their mental health. Val was able to use her background in teaching to help the
kids with homework, build that relationship, so when they came to therapy, the session was
more productive.
One thing she said that I didn't realize was that you aren't really able to plan for the therapy
sessions. You just have to go with whatever the agenda the child brings. I realized this will
be difficult for me because I like having a plan and knowing what I'm getting into.
When I asked how accommodating the work schedule was to her personal life she
responded very sternly, not at all. She had her 14 hour shift but she was on call 24/7 in case
there was a runaway or emergency at work, even if she just got home, she had to head
back to work. She said she was allowed vacation time, but when she took it, it caused
problems at work when her clients thought she left because she hated them. Ultimately it
hurt their relationship of trust they built so she just stopped taking vacations.

Ultimately her advice to me was Be very dedicated if thats what you want. Do volunteer
work with troubled kids to see if thats actually what you want to get into. Once you do all
that education and get into the field, your education has been too specific and theres not
much you can do outside that.
Continuing Education
When we talked about continuing education, Val said that once youre done with the actual
school part, youre done with school, but you continuously are attending workshops and
reviewing your textbooks to brush up for a particular patient. You also have to keep up on
your required hours for your license. She recommended if I did pursue a career then I
should do lots of research and volunteering to find out exactly what field I want to go into
and then become specialized to be more marketable.
The other thing she mentioned that you need to continually learn about and work on is your
own personal health. Constantly evaluating your life and working it out so when you go into
a session with a client, you can leave your problems at the door.

Interview Analysis
This interview introduced me to some new career ideas and also taught me a lot about how
to conduct an interview.
Analysis of Social Work as my Career Choice
From this interview, I learned a lot about how many options there really are in Social Work. I
learned that it will take a lot of dedication and hard work and I should be 100% invested if I
do decide to continue down this path. I should do more research and volunteer work to
better understand if this is something I want to pursue.
By following up on Val's advice, I can gain more clarity on my educational path. I truly
learned a lotI had little knowledge of how complicated the life of a Social Worker really is.
I was also shocked that she said its good to have your own therapist and work on your own
mental health before you can help others, I know I had a question about that but that was
only because a classmate mentioned that during one of our lectures. She even gave me
that bit of advice before I even got around to asking that question, so it must be really
important.
Analysis of my Interviewing Process
I'm fairly shy when it comes to meeting new people, and not a good public speaker. I felt
quite intimidated talking to a stranger. It was comforting having my friend there and her
family was really nice which made it easier. Also, Val was really enthusiastic about the topic
and answered every question with a nice open full answer, even if it was a closed question.

For the interview, I printed off my questions I came up with and left space in between each
one so I can write short hand answers and quotes. She also answered questions before I
had the chance to ask them, so with my printed questions I was able to just find the one she
was answering and write notes without interrupting her.
If I ever conduct an interview again, I think I could come up with better, more developed
questions and follow up questions. Also, I could try to write a little more clearly in my notes.
some of them took me a while to decode. I would also like to find out if some of Vals
experiences and troubles are the norm across the board or if they were her own personal
thoughts.
At the end of our interview, I felt a little more comfortable. I completely forgot what I was
going to say for the ending of the interview, but it went well none the less. It was awkward
having her fill out the evaluation form for me with me sitting right there, but since my
classmate (her daughter) was also there we started talking and I helped her make her eportfolio while her mom finished the evaluation, the awkwardness soon vanished.
All in all, I found this to be a useful assignment that will help me as I decide on a career
path, and also as I conduct interviews in the workplace.
Letter of Thanks
3206 S. 4760 W
West Valley City, UT 84120
February 22, 2016
Vals Adress
Ms. Val Nuttall
4756 S 3600 W
Taylorsville, UT 84129
Dear Val,
Thank you so much for allowing me to interview you about your career. The answers you
provided during our interview were really interesting to me.
I admire your dedication to your job and the care you give to ensure the best for your
clients. I like how you found a way to use all of your talents to help as many people as you
can. It has made me aspire to do the same. You make a superb role model. From talking to
you I have gained vital information. You also opened my eyes to more areas I can explore
as I consider my own future career.

I appreciate you making time for me to conduct this interview. You really helped me for my
communication class. I learned so much about Social Work and more about interviewing,
which will definitely help me in my future!

Sincerely,
Jordan Johnson