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(pp. 172-173)
How would you respond to a friend who came to you with this problem? Banville
offers five types of responses. The last response — paraphrasing — is the one to use in
nondirective interviews.
Advice giving is highly judgmental and implies the person can't find a solution to the
problem. If, for example, you respond by saying, "If you had picked decent classes, you
wouldn't have such a hard time getting up during the week," you are making a judgment,
which often brings out defensiveness in the speaker.
Suppose, instead, you gave your interpretation: "You're just feeling that way
because you are worried about final exams." Here you are trying to get to the cause of the
problem — but you often run the risk of being seriously in error.
Cross-examination is sometimes used in an attempt to learn more about the
situation. Often the well-intentioned interviewer tries to proceed in logical fashion, eliciting
yes-or-no answers, with such questions as, "Did the problem start this semester?" "Would
you say you have been happy this term?" "So, you hate your eight o'clock class, huh?"
These questions hardly convey a sense of helpfulness to the person.
When you offer reassurance, you try to "smooth things over" by telling the person
something like, "Oh, I think everybody has that happen to them," or "I think things always
work out for the best." Such responses can sometimes help, but often the person feels as if
he or she still has a problem. No real insight is gained and no solution is found.
Paraphrasing is the preferred method for responding to a person who is expressing
his or her feelings about a problem situation. When you paraphrase, your intent is to keep
the focus of attention on that person's feelings, ideas, and insights rather than your own.
Paraphrasing is also called reflecting, and statements rather than questions are often used.
For example, you might say, "It sounds like this is bothering you." IT shows you are reacting
to the person's feelings as well as hearing the content message. This technique also acts
like a probe in that it encourages the person to elaborate and gain further understanding
about the situation. Finally, it shows that you are accepting rather than judging the person's
feelings, and this leads to further self-disclosure and trust (Cahn and Tubbs, 1983).

Interviewer Empathy
Interviewer empathy is an important ingredient in the nondirective interview technique.
McComb and Jablin (1984) studied employment interviews to determine the perceived
empathy of interviewers. From their review of literature, the authors conclude that verbal
behaviors associated with empathy include appropriate silence, probing questions, verbal
encouragers, restatements, and questions calling for clarification. They found that
interviewers who interrupted interviewees were perceived by the interviewee as
nonempathic, unless it was an interrupting question. Also, the longer it took for an
interviewer to respond, the greater the probability he or she would be perceived as
nonempathic. Probing questions and questions calling for clarification were associated with
perceptions of interviewer empathy. Interestingly, however, whether or not the interviewer
was perceived as empathic or actually engaged in empathic behaviors, there were no
differences with respect to the interviewee being called back for a second interview. The
empathic behaviors may have made the interview experience more enjoyable and created
more positive feelings (certainly important) but had no consequences for the important
outcome of being called back for another interview.