KAHN and CANNEL (1957) already described the informational interview as a field
of forces in which the interviewer's behavior plays an important role and which
significantly affects the quality and quantity of the information supplied by
the interviewee.
Furthermore, KAHN and CANNEL put LEWINs field theory in relationship with ROGERS'
theory of the therapist's attitudes and behavior; the interview technique they
designed, however, is a compromise between adopting both those theories and
inserting their operational implications into a scheme of prestructured, direct
questions. Despite recognizing the important function ROGERS attributed to what
they named non-directive controlled probing, they inserted this behavior into
a frame of direct questions only when an answer to one of these questions seemed
incomplete and/or ambiguous.
I shall try to show the inconsistency between adopting ROGERS' personality theory
and describing the interview as a field of forces, on one hand, and alternating
the use of prestructured questions with reflection responses in the course of
the interview, on the other. I shall also outline a methodological stance which
is partially different from KAHN and CANNELs one but is consistent with their
theoretical assumptions. This stance guarantees that the reflection responses
will be as effective as possible in creating a field of forces which enhances
the reassuring atmosphere in the interview situation. Gradually enhancing the
reassuring atmosphere should make the interviewee's mind increasingly flexible,
i.e. should make the boundaries with-in his/her mind increasingly loose and
easy to change; this increase in looseness should give rise, in turn, to an
increasingly rich and clear verbal production.
We might say that das Werden (genesis) in the field conditions created by the
interviewers' reflection responses gives rise to das Werden in the interviewee's
mind and in their verbal production. The latter begins as a hesitating, laconic,
superficial way of communicating and tends to become fluent, rich and deep.
In this theoretical framework, alternating direct, interviewer-centered questions
with reflection responses implies alternating the desirable effects of the latter
with the negative effects of forces working in a different direction, i.e. forces
which are very likely to provoke hesitations and blocks in the interviewee's
communication, thus interfering with the effects of the reflection responses,
which KAHN and CANNEL recognize as well.
I shall, first, briefly describe the structure of reflection response by focussing
on its function of implementing interviewers' attitudes of unconditioned acceptation
and empathic comprehension and its consequent function of enhancing the reassuring
forces as opposed to those field forces which tend, instead, to increase closedmindedness
and communication blocks.
Secondly, I shall show some of the clues in ROGERS' work to the influence of
Gestalt theory on his definition of the function of interviewers' verbal behavior.
As to Gestalt theory, WERTHEIMER and DUNCKER's definitions of problem solving
are especially applied to the design of a specific instructional
project to enhance the ability of text comprehension.
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