by the written summary, the telephone becomes a far safer means of communication.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

1. The best means of communication for most case work purposes is the personal interview; the worst is the blank form.

2. The letter of inquiry is too often a matter of routine. The value of such a letter may be tested by the following questions:

(1) Should the letter be written at all or would some other means of communication serve the purpose better?

(2) Should the letter be written now? Have the preliminary inquiries that would make its writing the logical next step all been made?

(3) What relation does this particular inquiry bear to the whole process? (4) Has the best correspondent been chosen for the end in view?

(5) What will interest the correspondent selected?

(6) What presentation will save him unnecessary trouble?

(7) What facts relating to this correspondent's occupation, education, etc., should modify the approach by letter?

3. The case worker's letter of reply to an inquiry should bear internal evidence that the inquirer's letter has been read and its contents fully apprehended. When it is impossible to cover all the points of an inquiry, a reply should name the items not covered and give reasons for the omission.

4. A letter of reply to an inquiry should not confuse the inferences of the writer with the information on which they are based. The letter should give both, but it should be possible for its recipient to distinguish them.

5. A telegraphic dispatch should always be followed by a letter the same day; this follow-up letter should contain a copy of the dispatch.

6. The telephone as a means of communication in case work is too convenient to be abandoned, but its drawbacks are not always understood and guarded against. There are good reasons why people are not so frank in their telephone intercourse as they are face to face, nor do they understand what is said as well. The eye aids the ear in getting names and numbers accurately; over the telephone these are frequently misunderstood.

CHAPTER XVIII

COMPARISON AND INTERPRETATION

E come now to the fourth and last of what for convenience we have defined as the stages leading to diagnosis.

Workers will continue, in many cases, to find their way to

a correct and sufficiently amplified diagnosis without consciously arranging the preliminary steps in groups, but in cases presenting difficulties they will find this separation and the further analysis attempted in this chapter an aid to thinking. The processes already described have been (1) the first full interview with a client, (2) the early contacts with his immediate family, (3) the search for further insight and for sources of needed co-operation outside his immediate family.

To emphasize the essential unity of these three processes, to bring out a few of their salient features and to establish more clearly the relation of these to the final process of Comparison and Interpretation now to be described, it is necessary at this point to review briefly a part of the ground that has already been covered. Since each item of this restatement has been more fully developed in earlier chapters, no more than a regrouping of the main ideas is necessary.

I. CERTAIN ASPECTS OF EARLIER PROCESSES RESTATED We have seen (1) that certain methods and points of view are common to all interviews, (2) that different types of interview call for changes of emphasis, (3) that discrimination in the choice of outside sources of insight is an economy of time as well as an indication of skill, (4) that the risks involved in different types of evidence and the nature of these types must be kept in mind in gathering the facts and in weighing them, and (5) that the characteristics of human beings as witnesses should be our constant study.

1. Methods Common to All Interviews. Our methods and point of view are in many ways the same whether we are meeting a client

for the first time, visiting members of his immediate family, or seeking insight from outside sources. In all these cases we should

(a) Strive to procure from each the evidence that each is best able to give. Some facts come best from our client, some from our observation of his home surroundings and neighborhood, some from the testimony of employers and comrades, and some from documentary sources.

(b) Utilize any natural avenue of approach to a client presented at the beginning of the interview, and as the interview develops avoid the temptation to shape it in accordance with preconceived ideas of its probable content. The same caution applies to any questions that we may have to ask-the way in which we put our question should not suggest the answer.

(c) Give the person interviewed ample time, therefore, in which to explain his own point of view, and give him also a sympathetic hearing.

(d) Keep the goals of fuller knowledge of the client's problem and of the future co-operation of relatives, employers, etc., in its solution always in view. Our ability to show genuine interest will play an important part in procuring both information and backing.

2. Changes of Emphasis in Interviewing. Generally speaking, we are justified in narrowing our inquiry, somewhat, as we approach the sources farthest away from our client's personal life, and in broadening it in our talks with him and his family. As between the client and his family group on the one hand and certain outside sources on the other, this difference becomes a marked one. In talking with our client, the whole man, for any diagnosis that deserves to be called social, must concern us. We must be alert to every possible clue to his personality, or, in other words, we must note the current of events in his life as well as his social relationships. What has been the main drift of that current? Who are the people and what are the social institutions that have most influenced him?

To win these insights as promptly as possible without endangering our future relations with him we must avoid, in our interviews, all dictation, hurry, and overquestioning; we must give our client a patient and fair hearing, merely guiding the trend of talk enough to encourage a full development of his story.

This same painstaking method may be necessary with all the members of the client's family group. Knowledge of the main drift of the family life may be the key to a diagnosis of the client's situation. In studying that drift it will be found useful to note the difference between the power of cohesion in a united and in an unstable family.

Passing to outside sources, we find some, more especially those whose relations to our client have been personal and unbroken, from whom we shall need guidance and help during the period of treatment. A number of others, however, we shall see only, as a rule, before our diagnosis is made, and thereafter not at all. With these latter we can afford to save time by narrowing the inquiry to the special information which this or that source is likely to supply, though always with the possibility in mind that, at any moment, the person interviewed may show himself able to throw unexpected light on other aspects of the problem. We do not see even the least important outside source merely for verification of items already learned elsewhere; verification should be a by-product of more fruitful intercourse. Success in the interviewing of outside sources depends partly upon taking time to explain briefly to teacher, physician, church visitor, etc., the relation of the items of information sought from him to the constructive work which is in process.

It is evident that the multiplication of interviews in which inquiry is thus narrowed may be carried too far. If undertaken heedlessly, without a clear conception of the weaknesses and strengths of the evidence already gathered, they may add little to our sum of knowledge. On the other hand, there is always a degree of risk in omitting any source. One of the ways of economizing means is to strive to get from sources that are being consulted sidelights upon the probable value of those that have not yet been seen.

3. Discrimination in the Choice of Outside Sources. Economy of means is a lesson still too little heeded by case workers. They should beware, it is true, of using in every case the same two or three kinds of source and no more; but, in choosing varied sources for varied cases, they should learn to seek the source of each kind which is likely to yield the facts they want-the most skilful physician, for example, the employer for whom a client worked longest,

the one for whom he worked longest during the last five years, the previous residence at which his family lived the longest during the same period, the social agency that has had the least casual contacts with his family, etc. It may even be that some social agency has already assumed responsibility for treatment. This fact would come out after consultation of the index at the confidential exchange or social service exchange, and would render unnecessary further work with the client in question.

Every such discrimination gives a more assured and economical use of sources. Thus

(a) Some sources are known, even before they have been seen, to be rich in history-they are familiar with our client's early life from observation instead of hearsay. These witnesses may or may not be so associated with the client's present as to be likely to be rich also in co-operation. In choosing the order in which sources should be seen, it has been found useful to see first those who are likely to be rich in history only, in order that our first conference with a possible co-operator may be conducted later, when we can meet him on more equal terms as to a knowledge of relevant facts in the client's history and therefore with greater likelihood of achieving a social result.

(b) Another useful discrimination is that between clues to outside sources obtained from a client or his immediate family, and such clues when obtained elsewhere. The latter are called supplementary clues, and, since usually they have been revealed more disinterestedly, are less liable to be prejudiced.

(c) A further discrimination divides social agencies as witnesses into those agencies that have had a personal experience with our client which has a bearing upon diagnosis, and those agencies that, with or without such an experience, have gathered certain objective and fundamental data with regard to the client-data which are not likely to change. Previous experience of the work of certain social agencies may serve here to guide us to those that usually gather carefully the facts of family and personal background.

(d) Still another discrimination is between the uses to which documentary and personal sources can be put. The impersonal document is more satisfactory for objective matters of fact, such as events, dates, places, amounts; and individual testimony more