The Interview Technique is a Recording and Listening practice in which we facilitate someone—“someone” inside ourselves—who is suffering. Read through this page and listen to the audio clips and you will have both a clear understanding of why we use this technique and ways to practice with it.
- Tune in to the situation where you feel stuck, are suffering, don’t have clarity.
- Tune in to the person caught in this situation. This is the person being interviewed.
- Then, imagine you, as a facilitator, are sitting across from this person. Visualize them in front of you. If it is helpful, draw a sketch of them and put it up in front of you.
- Using the skills of reflecting, drawing out and clarifying (see below), facilitate them in expressing what’s going on for them.
- The interviewee talks silently; the practitioner will not hear this on the recorder.
- The facilitator is the one who will be speaking aloud.
- The facilitation is recorded and listened to afterwards.
Listen to this short recording to hear about the aspects of facilitation.
- We are practicing presence.
- We are listening deeply with the intent to mirror what they say.
- We are repeating exactly what they said.
- We are reflecting the tone, as well as the words.
- When the speaker says, “I ___,” we are reflecting back with, “You ___.” (This keeps the attention on the speaker!) Trust that awareness will reflect, rather than conditioned mind.
- We do not summarize or paraphrase.
- We do not insert any judgment.
- We do not give advice, empathize, or try to fix anything.
Listen to this short recording to hear about reflecting.
- We are inviting the person to say more. “Could you say more about that?”
- We are asking them to go deeper into what is going on for them.
- We are asking them to look at the process and speak from the experience.
- When we aren’t sure about what they said, we can ask for clarification.
- We are asking, “Let me see if I’m tracking….”
Listen to this short recording to hear about drawing out and clarifying.
Remember, the Interview Technique is facilitating an aspect of you, not someone else.
Listen to this audio to hear the steps and practice the technique.
Q: Are we recording both the facilitator and the aspect who is being interviewed?
A: The person you are interviewing doesn’t say anything out loud, therefore the only voice on the recorder is that of the facilitator. When you listen back to the recording, you will hear what is going on for the person being interviewed because the facilitator reflects that out loud.
Listen to this audio to hear more.
Q: What if the person morphs into someone else during the interview?
A: Just facilitate whoever is there and ask clarifying questions to explore further.
Q: For the drawing out, are we trying to understand as the facilitator?
A: No! Drawing out is a technique to encourage the interviewee to explore their experience further, to expand on what they are saying, to provide more details. It’s to help the interviewee to have more clarity about their experience.
Q: There are a lot of gaps when I am recording. Should I stop recording and start again when the person being facilitated begins to speak?
A. It is important to remember that this technique is a structure for facilitating the person who is suffering. And, it is also a container for an expanded process of awareness. We are communicating, whether talking or not, that we are here, completely present.
Listen to this audio clip to hear more about why this is not just a linear back-and-forth — so much more is being witnessed.
Q: What do I do if I am having trouble using this technique or finding the willingness to practice it?
A: You could use the one asking this question as the subject for the interview process. Who says that? Who believes it? This structure can support us to go beyond resistance by interviewing the person who feels the resistance.
Q: How is this different from the two-handed recording practice?
A: We are practicing many skills with the two handed recording. We are training to speak without being censored, bear compassionate witness, offer wisdom, receive comfort, and witness our Authentic Nature It’s also a tool which is especially helpful when there is a high degree of ego-identification.
Learn about Two-Handed R/L by clicking here.
The Interview Technique is a tool for a different situation. Its power lies in developing the ability to be the affectionate witness that can support the person suffering to have more clarity. To reflect, you cannot BE the person you are reflecting. We reflect from disidentification. And, sometimes the tool is a better one to use if the pattern of suffering we are looking at is a well-worn one!
Listen to Ashwini speak to this.
Q: Is it okay to paraphrase something that we think the person being reflected is saying?
A: We do not paraphrase when we reflect. We always want to stay with the experience of the person being interviewed and take care not to let any other players hijack the interview with what “they think.” As we facilitate, things may drop in for the facilitator. It is fine to ask a clarifying question in that case. For example, if you project a feeling on someone, ask it as a clarifying question, “I project that sounds scary for you; is that right?” versus “That sounds scary.”
Q: I remember a special “twist” to this interview process, using a process map. Could you remind me why we use this and what the steps are for this?
A: Yes. In this method, having the process map gives both the facilitator and the person being facilitated more to draw from. The person making the process map is typically only having a conversation with conditioning, but in the facilitated interview process, that person is being witnessed and reflected from a place of love. The person is in conversation with conscious awareness. The witnessing is happening by both the interviewer and the interviewee.
Listen to this audio for the steps to take using process maps in the Interview Technique.