Learning Resources· Perkinson, R. R. (2012). Chemical dependency.docx

Learning Resources
· Perkinson, R. R. (2012). Chemical dependency counseling: A
practical guide (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
. Chapter 4, “The Biopsychosocial Interview”
Focus on the particular questions asked by the interviewer and
whether they are effective in assessing the biological (bio);
emotional, attitudes, and behavior (psycho); and social (socio)
aspects of the individual’s addiction.
. Appendix 6, “Sample Biopsychosocial Interview”
This section is the basis for the week’s Assignment. Focus
on Jane Roberts’s history of the present illness and past history.
How might these aspects of her life affect the questions you
would ask her during an addictions assessment?
. Enter your MyWalden user name: ([email protected]) and
password (3#icldyoB1) at the prompt.
· Greenfield, S. F., & Hennessy, G. (2015). Assessment of the
patient. In M. Galanter, & H. D. Kleber (Eds.), The American
Psychiatric Publishing textbook of substance abuse treatment
(5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric
Publishing.Focus on the importance of open-ended interview
questions to circumvent defense mechanisms in the assessment
process.
. Enter your MyWalden user name: ([email protected]) and
password (3#icldyoB1) at the prompt.
· Arria, A. M., & McLellan, A. T. (2012). Evolution of Concept,
But Not Action. Addiction Treatment. Substance Use & Misuse,
47(8/9).Focus on the evolution in how addictions and addiction
treatments are conceptualized and the treatment services that
are frequently offered.

Media
· Laureate Education (Producer). (2012a). Interviewing
techniques [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://class.waldenu.edu
This video concerns the same individuals from Week 1. This
time, view it in the context of determining effective
interviewing skills.
WAL_PSYC3011_03_
A_EN-CC.mp4
Chinese American Women Defense Workers in World War II
Author(s): Xiaojian Zhao
Source: California History, Vol. 75, No. 2 (Summer, 1996), pp.
138-153
Published by: University of California Press in association with
the California Historical Society
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Before the Second World War it was difficult for Chinese
American women to get jobs outside Chinatown because
of racial and gender
discrimination. However, the nation's wartime needs required
that every able-bodied per
son be mobilized, including
women and racial minorities. The result was an
unprecedented hiring
of Chinese
American women in the Bay Area's wartime industries. This

picture shows Nancy Lew
Mar
working
as a riv
eter at the Pan-American Airways
on Treasure Island. Nancy Lew Mar Collection.
138 CALIFORNIA HISTORY
2013 13:20:30 PM
Chinese American Women
Defense Workers in World War II
by Xiaojian Zhao
In February 1945, Fortune Magazine published an
article on the Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, Cal
ifornia, including eight photos of the shipyards
workers. One of the captions for the photos says,
"Chinese Woman: she hasn't missed a day's work in
two years."
1
This woman was Ah Yoke Gee, a

welder in Kaiser Richmond Shipyard Number Two.*
The weekly magazine of the Kaiser Richmond ship
yards, Pore 'N'Aft, described her
as one of the oldest
crew members of Richmond shipyards. From July 31,
1942, when she started to work in the shipyard, to
April 20,1945, Ah Yoke Gee had missed only one day
of work to spend time with her oldest son,
a ser
viceman who was passing through San Francisco
on
his way to the Pacific front.2 At a time when there
was a
shortage of labor, Ah Yoke Gee's story
was
apparently useful for the Kaiser company's public
relations. Here, a middle-aged Chinese American
woman was
being recognized
as a
patriotic, hard
working defense worker, who
was

doing her best to
contribute to the nation's war effort.
Ironically, this model shipyard worker had been
deprived of citizenship by her
own government.
Born in 1895 on the Monterey Peninsula in Califor
nia, Ah Yoke Gee was a second-generation Chinese
American for whom U. S. citizenship
was a
*The real names of some of my informants are not given in
this essay upon their request. I
use the pinyin system in translit
erations, except for
names of well-known persons. If a person's
name has been printed in English sources before, I follow the
way it was in print to avoid confusion.
birthright. Her legal status changed, however, after
she married a Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong.
During the period of Chinese exclusion from 1882
to 1943, Ah Yoke Gee's husband, an alien from China,
was
racially ineligible for naturalization.3 Moreover,

the Cable Act of September 22,1922, stipulated that
women citizens who married aliens ineligible for cit
izenship could
no
longer be citizens themselves.4
Though Ah Yoke Gee worked for the nation's defense
industry, she could not vote
as a citizen. Her daugh
ters recalled that she had been very upset about los
ing her citizenship because she always considered
herself an American. At age forty-six, she finally had
the opportunity to work in
a defense industry to
demonstrate her patriotism to her country. It was also
during the
war that Congress repealed the Chinese
exclusion laws and made it possible later for Ah Yoke
Gee to regain her citizenship through naturalization.
Unfortunately, her husband, who died before the
war, did not live to see the happy day.5 Ah Yoke
passed away in 1973.

World War II marked a turning point in the lives
of Chinese Americans. For the first time, Chinese
Americans began to be accepted by the larger Amer
ican society. Chinese American
women not only had
a chance to work at jobs traditionally held by men,
but were also allowed to show their loyalty to their
country. Although scholars have long recognized the
importance of World War II in the lives of American
women, and there has been increasing popular inter
est in the topic since the release in the late 1970s of
a
documentary?"The Life and Times of Rosie the
SUMMER 1996 139
2013 13:20:30 PM
Riveter"?the existing literature has overlooked the
profound impact of the
war on Chinese American
women.
Partly because of

a
scarcity of English-lan
guage sources on this topic,
some scholars simply
have assumed that Chinese American women did
not share the experience of "Rosie the Riveter."6
Based on sources from Chinese-language
news
papers and reports, company documents, and oral
history interviews, this essay focuses
on the unique
experience of Chinese American female defense
workers in the San Francisco Bay
area. It examines
the racial discrimination and prejudice that had
forced Chinese Americans to isolate themselves in
their ethnic communities, and explores how second
generation Chinese American women, together with
men of their communities, grasped the wartime
opportunity to enter the larger American society. I
chose the San Francisco Bay

area as the setting of this
study because the
area had both the largest
concen
tration of defense industries and the largest
con
centration of Chinese American women during the
war.
The war created a favorable climate for Chinese
Americans to be accepted by American society, but
looking back, many Chinese Americans have mixed
feelings about the
war. The bombing of Pearl Har
bor was one of the most tragic incidents in the his
tory of the United States. Without it, however,
Chinese Americans would not have been able to
enter defense industries or the armed services. Since
the United States and China were allies against
com
mon enemies during the war, American images of
Chinese began to change from negative to positive
ones. Whereas, once, negative stereotypes of the

Chinese had dominated popular culture, the Amer
ican mass media now described the Chinese as
polite, moderate, and hard-working. On December
22, 1941, Time magazine, for example, published
a
short article to help the American public differenti
ate their Chinese "friends" from the Japanese. The
facial expressions of the Chinese, according to the
article, were more "placid, kindly, open," while those
of the Japanese
were more
"positive, dogmatic,
arro
gant."7 Also, because World War II
was considered
by the American public
as a
"good war" against fas
cists who had launched a racist war, it was impor
tant for the United States itself to improve its
domestic race relations. Chinese Americans, too,

recognized the racial dimension of this
war. "It is for
tunate," said an editorial in the Jinshan shibao (Chi
nese Times), a San Francisco-based Chinese-language
daily newspaper, "that this
war has the white race
and the yellow
race on both sides and therefore will
not turn into a war between the two."8
Moreover, Chinese Americans were needed for the
nation's armed forces and defense industries. In
May 1942, Bay Area defense establishments began
to advertise jobs in local Chinese newspapers. Rich
mond shipyards, in particular, announced that they
would hire Chinese Americans regardless of their cit
izenship
status or their English skills. In
a recruitment
speech, Henry Kaiser, president of Kaiser Industries,
which operated four shipyards in Richmond, called
upon Bay Area Chinese Americans to work in his
shipyards to support the
war effort. The Moore Dry

Dock Company hired Chinese-speaking instructors
in their Oakland welding school and started
a spe
cial bus service between the shipyard and Chinatown
for Chinese American trainees.
After decades of isolation imposed by the larger
American society, the Bay Area Chinese American
communities lost no time in seizing this opportunity.
In various meetings and social gatherings,
commu
nity leaders and organizations urged Chinese Amer
ican residents to participate in the
war efforts.
Because military service would qualify immigrants
for U.S. citizenship and
some Chinese immigrants
had been granted citizenship while in the Army, it
was considered a breakthrough in challenging the
exclusion acts. Jinshan shibao published
a number of
articles regarding the advantages of defense jobs.
First, defense jobs
were well paid. Second, these jobs

could be used for draft deferment. Third, defense
employees could apply for government- subsidized
2013 13:20:30 PM
housing, which provided
a great opportunity for
Chinese Americans to move out of their isolated eth
nic ghettos.10
Because few companies recorded the number of
their Chinese American employees, the existing lit
erature tends either to overlook them or give inac
curate estimates of them. In The Chinese Experience
in America, Shih-shan Henry Tsai estimated that in
1943, Chinese Americans "made up some 15 percent
of the shipyard work force in the San Francisco Bay
area."11 Since in 1943, the Bay Area had about 100,000
shipyard workers, Tsai's estimate suggests that
15,000 were Chinese Americans.12 However, given
the fact that the Bay Area's entire Chinese American

population, including all age groups,
was
only about
22,000 in 1940, and only
a small number of Chinese
Americans migrated to the West Coast during the
war, it was very unlikely that 15,000 of them (over
68 percent)
were defense workers.13 On August 21,
1942, the Chinese Press, a San Francisco Chinatown
based English-language newspaper, reported that
1,600 Chinese Americans worked in Bay Area
defense industries.14 This was one year before the
peak of the war, before several of the Bay Area's
major wartime shipbuilding establishments, includ
ing Richmond Shipyard Number Three and Marin
ship in Sausalito, began production. The number of
Chinese American defense workers would increase
significantly
a few months later, after major defense

establishments ran their ads in Chinese community
newspapers. Marinship alone, according to Jinshan
shibao, employed 400 Chinese Americans in March
1943. At the launching ceremony of Sun Yat-sen,
a Lib
erty Ship named after the leader of the Chinese Rev
olution of 1911, Marinship invited all the yard's
Chinese American employees and members of their
families. The ship
was christened by Mrs. Tao-ming
Wei, wife of the Chinese ambassador to the U.S., and
Madam Chiang Kai-shek
was the guest of honor.15
Based on these scattered pieces of information and
interviews with old timers of local Chinese com
munities, a reasonable estimate is that by 1943, about
Born and schooled in Oakland, Elizabeth Lew
Anderson, shown here, worked as a metalsmith
at Alameda Naval Air Station
during
the war. Eliz
abeth Lew Anderson Collection.

5,000 Chinese Americans were working (or had
worked) for defense-related industries in the Bay
Area, and between 500 to 600 of them were women.16
For a number of reasons, there were fewer female
than male Chinese Americans in defense industries.
The Chinese population in the United States histor
ically has had
an unbalanced sex ratio. Most of the
early Chinese immigrants
were male, and the Exclu
sion Act of 1882 also forced male Chinese immigrants
who had married women in their native provinces
SUMMER 1996 141
2013 13:20:30 PM
to leave their wives and children in China. Only reg
istered merchants and their families, students, teach
ers, diplomats, and travelers could be exempted
from the exclusion. In order to bring their wives to
the United States, many Chinese laborers were eager

to change their status
to merchants. Some of them
accomplished this by saving
a small amount of
money and then raising capital through
a hui to start
their own businesses.17 Others listed their names as
partners in businesses of relatives and friends. In
exchange for such privileges, they sometimes offered
years of free labor. The 1906 earthquake in San Fran
cisco to some extent facilitated the immigration of
Chinese. Since birth records of the city
were
destroyed during the earthquake
and fire, many
Chinese grasped the opportunity to claim U.S. citi
zenship and used their
new status to send for their
sons and daughters.18 Not until after 1910 did fam
ily-oriented life begin gradually to replace the old
bachelor society. By 1940, Chinese American citizens

finally outnumbered alien residents in Chinese
American communities.19 Nevertheless, that year
there were still 285 Chinese American men for every
one hundred Chinese American women.20
The precarious economic situation of immigrant
Chinese families compelled the majority of Chinese
American women to help
earn an income, no mat
ter whether they
were wives of business owners,
wives of laborers, or daughters of immigrants.21
Women's work in Chinese communities was often
integrated with family life and family businesses. In
small shops,
women worked alongside their hus
bands, between their households chores. Children of
shop-owners often worked from
an
early age, begin
ning by folding socks in laundry shops or cleaning
vegetables in restaurants and moving
on to more dif
ficult tasks as they got older. While

women and chil
dren did not earn wages, their work was
indispensable
to the family business since few
busi
nesses could afford to hire extra hands.22
Women whose families were not wealthy enough
to own businesses found employment mostly
as
cannery workers, shrimp cleaners,
or garment work
ers.
Cleaning shrimp
was a common
job for
women
with young children. During the shrimp season,
some women would bring shrimp home and sit
with their children shelling the shrimp from
morn
ing till night, sometimes under candlelight. Wages
were based on the weight of the shrimp that they
shelled daily. The most

common employment for
Chinese American women was in the garment indus
try, which made up 58 percent of all industrial
employment in San Francisco's Chinatown in the late
1930s. In the early 1940s, there
were more than sev
enty garment shops, most of which had fewer than
fifty employees. At
a time when unionized garment
workers received $19 to $30 a week, workers in Chi
natown's garment shops received only $4 to $16. A
typical garment shop
was located at the owner's
home, where family members of the shop-owner and
employees often worked together.23
During the war, in
contrast to Chinese American
men, who were more likely to be encouraged to join
the military or defense work, women's primary
duties still consisted of being wives and mothers.

Throughout the
war years, there were no articles or
editorials in Chinese newspapers specifically calling
on Chinese women to enter defense industries. "It
is the servicemen who will do the fighting for us,"
Madame C. T. Feng, chairman of the American
Women's Voluntary Service (an
overseas Chinese
organization) told Chinese American
women. "We
must show our fighting
men that we are...absolutely
behind them."24 As part of its war effort, the China
town branch YWCA in San Francisco started a spe
cial weekly class for
women to learn time-saving
ways for preparing nutritious food. In
a
speech
delivered to a YWCA open house meeting, the Y's
administrator, Jane Kwong Lee, called upon Chinese
American women to support the country by giving
their families "the right nutritional food."25 What

open support existed for defense employment for
women came mostly from the American-educated
second generation. As
a matter of fact, only the Eng
2013 13:20:30 PM
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After the war, Elizabeth Lew Anderson married a Cau
casian merchant seaman. Most of the time she accompa
nied him when he traveled and worked outside California,
but she returned to work at the Naval Air Station during
both the Korean and Vietnam wars. This 1983 photograph
captures her
at work. Elizabeth Lew Anderson Collection.
lish-language Chinese Press occasionally reported
activities of Chinese American women defense
workers. In contrast, Jinshan shibao, a major local Chi
nese-language newspaper that had
a
larger circula
tion, paid little attention to the subject. On April 16,
1943, Jade Snow Wong,
a San Francisco-born young

Chinese American woman, christened a Liberty
Ship at a Richmond shipyard and made the news in
the San Francisco Chronicle, but there was no cover
age of the event in Jinshan shibao. Not until three days
later, after friends and relatives of the Wong family
made complaints, did the newspaper print Wong's
story and offer a public apology.
2?
It was difficult for many Chinese American
women to go outside their communities to work,
even when they wanted to. Jobs in ethnic factories
were low paying. Nevertheless, the piece-work sys
tem and the flexible working hours made it possi
ble for women to combine wage-earning with their
family obligations. Before the war, 80 percent of the
women who worked in San Francisco's Chinatown
were married and 75 percent of them had children.
Married garment shop workers could take time off
to cook meals, shop, and pick up children from
school. Garment shops also allowed
women to
bring their small children with them to work. It was
very common to see babies sleeping in little cribs

next to their mothers' sewing machines and toddlers
crawling around
on the floor.27 Jobs outside the eth
nic community, however, did not allow such prac
tices.
The ethnically exclusive working environment,
moreover, provided
a
place where immigrant Chi
nese women could socialize. A married Chinese
woman with children did not have much time for
social life. At work, however, she could chat with
friends. Since everyone at work spoke Chinese,
women found the working environment agreeable,
and intimacy in sharing experiences of life in the
United States developed naturally. The relationship
between shop-owners and workers, if often eco
nomically exploitative,
was nonetheless friendly.
Family members of the shop-owners often worked
side-by-side with the workers. Their children
were
told to respect the employees, often addressing
older workers as 'Auntie" or "Uncle." Garment fac

tory jobs, therefore,
were in great demand in Chi
nese American communities. Even the wives of
bankers or small merchants sometimes sought
employment there.28
SUMMER 1996 143
2013 13:20:30 PM
Thus, although most Chinese American
women
were
compelled to
earn money to supplement their
family income, they did it while taking care of their
husbands and children. Since the exclusion acts
made it difficult for Chinese women to immigrate to
the United States and those who made it often did
so after years of separation from their husbands, it
was
extremely hard for them to take jobs that con

flicted with their household duties. Childcare was
one of the major problems. Nursery schools were not
available in San Francisco's Chinatown until the
early 1940s, and Chinese American
women were not
accustomed to the idea of leaving their children at
childcare facilities. Since very few Chinese immi
grated to the United States with their parents, they
usually did not have their parents helping out with
childcare.29
The decades-long isolation had also limited the
ability of immigrant Chinese working
women to
communicate with the outside world. Since they
often worked between household chores, they had
no time to participate in mainstream cultural activ
ities and little chance to speak English. After years
of working at Chinatown jobs, they found the out
side world too remote from their daily experience.
They did not have any non-Chinese friends and did
not know whom to trust outside their ethnic com
munities. For wives of shop-owners, their departure
for outside jobs would harm the family businesses

that depended
on the free labor of family members.
Transportation
was also an almost insurmountable
problem. Since very few Chinese families had
cars
at the time (4 percent in the late 1930s in San Fran
cisco), the majority of Chinese immigrant working
women were familiar only with the
area within
walking distance from their homes. To these women,
commuting from
one city in the Bay Area to another
was no different from traveling from
one state to
another.30
Given the social isolation of the immigrant gen
eration, it is not surprising that the Chinese Ameri
can women who worked in defense industries were
mostly the second-generation daughters of immi
grant women.31 Among the eighty-two Chinese

American women about whom I found information
in various sources, and the twenty-seven women
whom I was able to locate to conduct oral history
interviews, only four
were over the age of forty at
the time they worked.32 Few of them
were married
with children. Most of these women had gone to Cal
ifornia's public schools; they had at least a high
school education, and quite a few of them had
attended college. With relatively few household
responsibilities, in contrast to their mothers, they had
the freedom and independence to work outside the
home.
Since most of them were already living in the Bay
Area before the war, these younger Chinese Ameri
can women were among the first American women
to join the Bay Area's defense labor force. As early
as May 1942, the Chinese Press reported that young
Chinese American girls
were
working in most of the

defense establishments in the region. At the Engineer
Supply Depot, Pier 90, eighteen-year-old Ruth Law
was the youngest office staff member in the company.
Her co-worker, Anita Lee, was an assistant to the
company's chief clerk. Fannie Yee,
a
high school
senior at the time, won top secretarial honors for her
efficiency at work at Bethlehem Steel Corporation in
San Francisco. She worked with two other young
women, Rosalind Woo and Jessie Wong. The major
defense employers in San Francisco for Chinese
American women at the time, according to the Press,
were the Army Department and Fort Mason. In
Oakland, the Army Supply Base recognized Stella
Quan as a very capable clerk. The first two Chinese
American women who worked at Moore Dry Dock
Company
were
Maryland Pong and Edna Wong. The
State Employment Bureau also had Chinese Amer
ican women on its staff. Before Kaiser's Richmond

shipyards and Marinship began production work,
many young Chinese American girls worked
at
Mare Island Navy Shipyard. Among them
were
Anita Chew, Mildred Lew, and Evelyn Lee of Oak
2013 13:20:30 PM
Pearl Wong (second from the right) worked at the Oak
land Draft Board during the war. Third from the right is _
Army Major Farington. Pearl Wong Collection.
land. Both Jenny Sui of San Francisco and Betty Choy
of Vallejo started
as messenger girls in the yard,
but
they
were soon
promoted to clerk-typists.33
Some women even left their professional training

or
occupations for defense-related work. Miaolan Ye,
an Oakland-born Chinese American girl,
was a col
lege student majoring in agriculture at the time. She
left school during the
war to work as an inspector
in a defense establishment in San Leandro. Hon
olulu-born Betty Lum had been
a nurse before the
war. She, however, thought "shipbuilding is the pre
sent must industry of America" and resigned from
her nursing job to learn acetylene burning at
a Rich
mond shipyard. According to Fore 'N' Aft, there
were three reasons for Betty to support the
war effort:
she was an American citizen, she was Chinese, and
she had a nephew who
was killed during the attack
on Pearl Harbor. It is unclear when Betty Lum
moved to the Bay Area, but the Kaiser company used

her voice to urge other Chinese women to partici
pate in defense work. Betty also had two sisters
working in defense industries,
one of them at Rich
mond Shipyard Number Three. Her brother,
a den
tist at the time, was prepared to join the Army.35
Unlike single young women, it
was much
more difficult for married Chinese American
women to take defense jobs unless they did
not have small children at home. After she married,
Ah Yoke Gee spent most of her time at home tak
ing
care of her six children. She kept her sewing
machine running whenever she
was free from
household chores. One of her daughters
remem
bered that sometimes she woke up at two o'clock
in the morning and could still hear her mother
sewing. By the time the
war started, Ah Yoke was

widowed. Two of her older children had left home
and the rest of them were in either high school
or
college. Although she still cooked for her family, her
children had their own routines and did not expect
to be served in a formal way. Every morning before
leaving for her swing shift job in the shipyard, Ah
Yoke would cook enough food for the whole fam
ily for the day. On weekends she shopped, washed,
and cleaned.36
SUMMER 1996 145
2013 13:20:30 PM
A few married Chinese American women man
aged to find defense work alongside their husbands.
In late 1942, the Mare Island Navy Shipyard decided
to select a Chinese female employee to christen
a Lib
erty Ship. Among the eight Chinese American
nom

inees, two were married. The honor went to Mrs.
Yam, a Shop 51 electrician's helper. Mrs. Yam had just
graduated from San Jose High School.
Her newly
wed husband, Fred Yam, was the yard's pipe-fitter.
Having joined the shipyard in June 1942, the young
couple took the bus
to work together from San Fran
cisco's Chinatown to Vallejo. On December 18,1942,
Mrs. Yam, accompanied by six young Chinese Amer
ican girls, smashed
a bottle of champagne
at HMS
Foley's launching ceremony and became the first
Chinese American woman in California shipyards
to receive this highest wartime honor. She said she
felt like "the proudest and happiest girl in the
world."37
Other married Chinese American women joined
defense work while their husbands were away from
home. Jane Jeong,
a burner at Richmond Shipyard

Number Two, started her job in the shipyard only
four months after her wedding. Before the war, Jane
Jeong had been
a dancer and a nightclub manager.
She had also accumulated two hundred flying hours
and dreamed of being
a pilot fighting against the
Japanese in China.38 After the United States officially
entered the war, however, she realized that she could
support the
war effort both in China and in the U.S.
by building ships. Since her husband
was a merchant
seaman who was away from home most of the time,
Jane Jeong took a job at a Richmond shipyard.39
Coming from
a
farming community
in Fresno,
Mannie Lee moved to Richmond along with her hus
band and children. At a Kaiser shipyard, her husband
Henry Lee was
a

graveyard-shift welder,
while Man
nie worked with her two daughters, Henrietta Lee
and Hilda Fong, and
a
daughter-in-law, Lena Lee,
in the yard's electric shop.
In addition to the five ship
yard workers of the family,
Mannie Lee's two sons
and her son-in-law were all in the Army. Although
born in America, it was a big change for Mannie to
move from her vegetable farm to Richmond. But at
least the family still worked and lived together. The
difference was that everyone worked fewer hours
and made more money. Moreover, they enjoyed the
publicity from the company. Mannie and her family
had never received any recognition
as hard-work
ing farmers.40
Although the majority of the Chinese American
defense workers had grown up in the United States,

racial discrimination and prejudice before the
war
had prevented their participation in many
areas of
American society. Since
sons in Chinese American
families usually had priority
over
daughters in
receiving family support for higher education, Chi
nese American girls had to work harder than other
students to save money or win scholarships to go to
college. And despite the fact that these
women were
educated in the United States and had a good
com
mand of English, Chinese American children
in
racially integrated public schools in San Francisco
were excluded from most of the extracurricular
activities. They could not dance with white children
and few were invited to parties organized by peo

ple other than Chinese. The way they
were treated
in the job market
was even worse: engineering grad
uates of Chinese descent from the University of Cal
ifornia, Berkeley,
were
frequently rejected by
American firms. While white women with college
degrees and special training worked
as teachers,
nurses, secretaries, and social workers, similarly
educated Chinese American women could only find
service jobs
as elevator operators, waitresses,
dancers, and maids. Outside Chinese communities
their professional degrees
were
meaningless, for
few people wanted their services.41
It was the war that opened the door to better-pay
ing jobs for Chinese American
women. Aimei Chen,

who came to the United States shortly after she
was
born, had grown up in a small Chinese community
in Stockton. Before the war, she had worked as a
waitress in a Chinese cafe while attending junior col
2013 13:20:30 PM
lege. Some Caucasian girls her age got jobs in local
dime stores, ice cream parlors, and department
stores. Aimei, however, had never applied for those
jobs because she knew
no Chinese would be hired.
While in college taking business classes, Aimei
was
very pessimistic about her future. As
a Chinese
American woman, it was unlikely that she could find
a
job outside Chinatown. Moreover, Stockton's Chi

natown was very small and could not provide full
time employment for most of the
women in the
community. But, shortly after Pearl Harbor, Aimei
learned from friends that defense industries were hir
ing, regardless of the applicants' ethnic backgrounds.
She went with a friend to the Stockton Army Depot
and was hired on the spot as
a
secretary.42
Yulan Liu, an Oakland-born Chinese American
girl, had just graduated from high school in the
summer of 1942. Her father, who had come to the
United States as a "paper son" in 1915, worked
seven
days
a week in a grocery store in Oakland's China
town.43 Yulan's mother worked in a laundry shop,
where her four children spent most of their child
hood. Yulan also started to work in a laundry shop
at age twelve. She did not have time to play with
other children, and she did not recall ever being
invited to a Caucasian's house. After she graduated
from high school, Yulan began to work full-time. She

did not like the laundry shop job, but there were few
other alternatives. Most of the girls in Chinatown
were waitresses and garment workers. Some of her
friends worked as maids in private homes. One day,
her brother got a job at Moore Dry Dock Company
in Oakland and told Yulan that there were many
women
shipbuilders there. Yulan went to the yard
the next day and got
a
job
as a welder.44
Being employed in
a defense industry gave
some
Chinese American women a sense of belonging?of
finally being accepted by American society. At Marin
ship in Sausalito, Jade Snow Wong was happy that
she was employed by
an 'American" company. A San
Francisco-born Chinese American girl, Jade Snow
was the fifth daughter of

a garment shop-owner. She
In the summer of 1942, Jade Snow Wong, above, grad
uated from Mills College. When she sought advice at
the college placement office for
her job search, she
was
told not to expect any opportunities
in 'American busi
ness houses," and to look only for work
within her eth
nic community. U.S. involvement in World War II,
however, provided
new
employment situations for
women of all ethnicities. Hundreds of Chinese Amer
ican women found work in Bay Area shipyards
and
defense plants. Among them, Jade
Snow Wong worked
in a Richmond shipyard. After the war, in 1945, Wong
published Fifth Chinese Daughter, one of the first books
about what it was like growing up
as a Chinese Amer

ican woman. Jade Snow Wong Collection.
SUMMER 1996 147
2013 13:20:30 PM
started to work in the shop when she
was ten, help
ing her parents load garments
on
pick-up days. At
eleven, she learned to sew and worked next to her
mother. Although living in
an ethnic community, she
was
quite
aware of the differences between white
Americans and people from her
own ethnic group
and was eager to venture into the outside world.
Because of the financial difficulties of her family and
her parents' belief that it

was unnecessary for girls
to obtain a college education, she could not get fam
ily support to go to college
as her brother had. With
determination, however, Jade Snow studied very
hard and finally went to Mills College
on a scholar
ship. In the
summer of 1942, she graduated from
Mills College. As she stopped at the college place
ment office seeking advice for her job search, she
was
told not to expect any opportunities in 'American
business houses," and to look only for places within
her ethnic community. Jade Snow
was stunned; an
honor student, she felt "as if she had been struck on
both cheeks." She was, however, determined to get
a
job in
a non-Chinese company. Her younger sister
at the time worked at Marinship in Sausalito. Jade

Snow wanted to support the
war effort as a citizen,
so she went with her sister to Marinship. Twenty-four
hours after she submitted an application, she
was
hired.45
Maggie Gee, Ah Yoke Gee's daughter,
was born
in Berkeley. In
a
community where Chinese Ameri
can families were relatively few, Maggie grew up
among children from various ethnic backgrounds.
As a teenager, Maggie delivered newspapers and
helped Caucasian
women with their babies and
cooking. She thought the people whom she worked
for were nice to her. Nevertheless, as a Chinese, she
was not allowed to join white students' clubs and she
could not swim in community pools. After she grad
uated from high school, Maggie entered the Uni
versity of California, Berkeley. She paid the $28

tuition each semester out of her own earnings and
bought books and clothes with her
own money. Her
mother had supported Maggie's older brother
in col
lege and had
no money left for Maggie's education.
But Maggie did live and eat at home while in col
lege. Maggie
was a
good student in school, but she
did not know what she could do with a college
degree. She heard that many Chinese American
male college graduates, let alone Chinese American
women, had difficulties finding jobs in the fields in
which they had been trained.
Pearl Harbor finally brought Chinese Americans
and white Americans together
on new com
mon
ground. On December 7, 1941, Maggie
was
spending the afternoon studying in the campus

library. She found many students there talking very
emotionally. Maggie sensed that something unusual
had happened. To Chinese Americans, World War
II had begun
on
September 18,1931, when the Japan
ese invaded Manchuria in northeastern China. Mag
gie had been in the fourth grade at the time. Her
mother had planned
to send her and her sister to
China to study, and they had to cancel the trip after
the Japanese occupied Chinese territory. After July
7,1937, when the Japanese attacked Chinese troops
at Lugou Bridge
near
Beijing, the
war
against Japan
became a nationwide effort in China. Overseas Chi
nese were actively involved in supporting their fel
low countrymen. Maggie often went with her
mother to San Francisco's Chinatown to attend ral

lies and fund-raising activities. She remembered
how badly she felt when she learned about the
out
rageous atrocities during the 1937 Nanjing Massacre,
but she was surprised to notice that her American
classmates knew very little about what had hap
pened in China. Not until Pearl Harbor did every
one seem involved in the war effort. The Berkeley
campus offered classes for defense employment, in
which Maggie and many other students received
training. While still
a full-time student at Berkeley,
she got a graveyard-shift job
at Richmond Shipyard
Number Two.
Wartime employment provided tangible benefits
to many Chinese Americans. "For people who used
2013 13:20:30 PM

to have very little money," recalled Aimei Chen, "the
war was a time of great economic opportunity." She
started to buy things for her family?food, kitchen
ware, and other household items. Aimei's mother
also got a job in
a cannery in Stockton, where many
former employees had left for defense jobs. Yulan
Liu, meanwhile, made $65 a week, four times more
than she had made before the war. She gave some
money to her mother and saved the rest for herself.
On her day off, she went to the movies and bought
herself candies and pastries. As for Ah Yoke Gee, her
family endured great difficulties for many years
after she lost her husband. During the war, with both
her and her daughters working in the shipyard and
her son in the service, the living standard of the fam
ily improved significantly. Jade Snow Wong, for her
part, contributed part of her income to her parents
and saved money for her future education.
The ethnically diverse working environment pro

vided an opportunity for
women such as Ah Yoke
Gee to meet people about whom they had known
little before the war. For over forty years,
ever since
her birth, Ah Yoke had lived in the United States, but
as she moved from the Monterey Peninsula to San
Francisco and then to Berkeley, she had little con
tact with people other than Chinese. It
was at work
that she met all kinds of people and gained respect
as one of the oldest crew members of the yard.46
Yulan Liu was also very popular among her team
mates. A small figure weighing only eighty pounds
at the time, she not only worked hard but was also
the only
one of the team who could handle welding
jobs in
narrow areas of the ships. Her teammates
liked to hear her stories about people living in Chi
nese American communities. Upon their request, she
led a tour of the group to San Francisco's China
town.47

Defense industries provided
an
opportunity for
Chinese women to put to good
use their knowledge
of the world beyond school. After months of
research, Jade Snow Wong produced
a paper on the
absenteeism of shipyard workers. The paper
won
first prize in
an essay contest sponsored by the San
Francisco Chronicle and Bay Area defense industries.
In addition to a fifty-dollar
war bond, she was
offered the privilege of christening a Liberty Ship
at a Kaiser shipyard. When her picture appeared in
both English and Chinese newspapers, she gained
respect from members of her family and from peo
ple in the community. Many people in Chinatown
came to congratulate her parents for their daugh
ter's success in the 'American world."48
Although

some women were
doing traditionally
male jobs, compared to what they had done before
the war, most of them did not think defense work
was that hard. Joy Yee,
a San Francisco-born high
school graduate,
was the second daughter of
a gar
ment shop-owner in Oakland. Although Joy had
tried to sew with her mother and sisters in the shop,
her mother thought that Joy
was not good at sewing
and that she would never make it as a seamstress.
During the war, however, Joy got
a
job as a mechanic
at Alameda Naval Air Station. Excited at having "a
real job" in
a defense industry, she learned to
use dif
ferent tools and became very efficient at work.49
Before the war, Yulan Liu had worked ten hours a

day,
seven
days
a week, at a laundry. "There
was
nothing heavier than the iron," she said. "Sometimes
my arm was so sore at night that I could not hold
my chopsticks." On the other hand, "the welding
torch," as she remembered, "was lighter," mainly
because she did not have to hold it for hours. Even
on an
assembly line, she
was able to work in differ
ent parts of the ships and she always had
a chance
to chat with people between assignments. In the
laundry shop,
no matter how fast she worked, there
was
always
more to be washed, ironed, and folded,
and she could hardly find any time to rest.50 The big
change for Ah Yoke Gee was that she did not have

to sew late at night any
more. She worked eight hours
a
day for most of the days and had Sundays off.51
For some women, however, a defense job
was not
easy. Maggie Gee, for example, found working at
night in the shipyard to be tiring. Welding itself was
SUMMER 1996 149
2013 13:20:30 PM
_<_________? ___ ^____b
/^l____________^ _#?_ _______
___________________________ :Jff^^ ___.-__ _______
Maggie Gee worked
as a welder at a Richmond shipyard
and then as
a draftswoman at the Mare Island Navy Shipyard during the
war. In
1944, she joined the Women's Air force Service Pilots (WASPs)

where
she was one of only
two Chinese American women. Because Chinese
families did not value the education of their
daughters
as much as
they
did of their sons, Maggie had to pay her own way through the
Uni
versity of California
at
Berkeley. After the
war she earned a Ph.D., and,
continuing her tradition of unprecedented accomplishments
among
Asian American women in the United States, she worked for
many
years as the only
woman
physicist
at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory. Maggie Gee Collection.
not bad, but at night she did not have people around
to talk to. It was difficult to stay awake at work, since

she was still attending school during the day and
could not get much sleep. When the job
was slow,
she sometimes fell asleep, but it
was so cold at night
in the shipyard that she could
never
sleep well. A
year later, when she graduated from college, Mag
gie decided to do something different for
a
change.
She got a new job at Mare Island Navy Shipyard as
a draftswoman.
It was the job at Mare Island that led Maggie to the
most exciting adventure of her life. Working in
a
big
office with over thirty people, she and two young
women, one a Caucasian and one a Filipina, quickly
became close friends. At lunch time, the three of them
would meet in the rest area adjoining the ladies'
room.
They would chat, eat their lunches, and drink

coffee. They all liked the idea of helping the country
fight the war, but at the
same time, they all wanted
to do something
more
exciting. The Filipina had
taken some flying lessons before the war, and the
three of them decided to save money for aviation
training. When Maggie finally saved enough money
for a training program, she
was so
overjoyed that she
tossed the money into the air. Although
as a child
Maggie had enjoyed watching airplanes at the Oak
land Airport, she had
never dreamed of flying
an air
plane herself. After she graduated from
an aviation
school in Nevada, she interviewed with the Women's

Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). When she returned
to her drafting job at Mare Island, waiting for
a call
from the Army, Maggie realized that her life had
changed. Everyone?mostly men?in her work
area
was interested in what she and her friends had done.
Some people
were envious. A few months later,
Maggie
was called by the Army and became
one of
only two Chinese American
women in the WASPs.
Her mother saw her off at the train station. Ah Yoke
Gee was proud of her daughter. She wished that she
herself were twenty years younger because she
would have liked to fly too. Maggie remained
a
WASP until the unit was disbanded in late 1944.
While in the service, she transported military sup
plies throughout the country.52

Although Chinese Americans
were
accepted in
defense industries, they had little chance to be pro
moted to supervisory positions. Many companies
simply assumed that white employees would not fol
low orders given by Chinese. For those who had
upgraded their skills
over the years (usually male
workers), this could be very frustrating. One male
Chinese American worker at a Richmond shipyard
had years of working experience with
an excellent
performance record. But he, too,
saw several less
qualified white workers promoted to foreman posi
tions with no chance being given to him. Although
he complained,
no one listened. Finally he got
so
angry that he quit his job.53
Because women were not expected to work in

defense industries after the war, they
were not in a
position to compete with male employees for super
visory positions. Therefore, unlike the Chinese Amer
ican men, very few Chinese American women had
direct conflict with other workers or their supervi
sors. Some women recalled that better jobs usually
went to Caucasian women. On the other hand, except
for the few immigrants who did not speak English,
2013 13:20:30 PM
most of the Chinese American women had at least a
high school education, and therefore did not work
as
janitors.54 They
were
mostly employed
as office

clerks, draftswomen, welders, burners, and in other
semi-skilled positions. Since not many defense estab
lishments employed large groups of Chinese Amer
ican women, it was hard for these women to socialize
exclusively among themselves. This, in fact, gave Chi
nese American women opportunities to meet people
from different ethnic backgrounds.55 Other workers
also showed a great deal of curiosity about Chinese
American women, for few of them had met Chinese
American women before the war. Leong Bo San,
a
middle-aged Chinese American
woman from San
Francisco, was described in Fore 'N'Aft
as "a tiny, doll
like figure" who "walks with the dainty, mincing gait
of the upper class Chinese lady whose feet
once were
bound" in her "flat rubber-soled shoes of the ship
yard." According to the report, Leong Bo San had
drawn attention from "everyone" who rode "the

graveyard ferry boat." At Assembly Line 11, the
report went on, Leong Bo San
was
"everybody's
favorite," for she often came to the yard with Chi
nese
shrimp, fruit, and cake to share with other
workers. Although she looked tiny and delicate, she
worked with "an energy that amazes people twice her
size." Her boss, James G. Zeck, reportedly said that
"I wish I had a whole crew of people like her."56
Nevertheless, some women did find themselves
trapped in
a
place where the future
was dismal. For
example, Jade Snow Wong's talent and ability
were
recognized by her boss at Marinship. Every time the
boss got promoted to
a
higher position, he would
take her with him to his new office. But Jade Snow

noticed that while many clerks, secretaries, and
other office workers in Marinship
were women,
their bosses, those who read the reports prepared by
their secretaries and made decisions, were all men.57
Asked later whether she would like to stay at Marin
ship when the
war ended if she had the choice, she
answered "no" without any hesitation. "I decided to
leave before they started to lay people off," she said.
"There was no future for me, no future for women
in the shipyard." At Mills College, Jade Snow had
found a few female role models?her professors, the
dean for whom she had worked, and the college pres
ident. She wanted to be a professional
woman like
them. But "in defense industry," she said, "a
woman
could only be someone's secretary. The bosses
were
all men." Before the war ended, she started search
ing for a career in which she did not have to be

treated differently because she
was a Chinese Amer
ican and a woman.58
Toward the end of the war, defense industries
gradually reduced the volume of their production,
and their workers were free to leave their jobs. Some
Chinese American women had waited for this day
to come. Jade Snow Wong
was
happy that she had
done her part to support the war effort of her coun
try, but she quit her job right after V-J day. With the
money that she had saved, she started a business of
her own in San Francisco's Chinatown and began
writing books.59 Alameda Naval Air Station was one
of the few defense establishments in the Bay Area
that was able to keep
some of its female employees
after the war. Some women in the station, neverthe
less, decided to leave. Lanfang Wong,
a metalsmith

in the yard for over three years, quit her job for two
reasons. First, she found it tiring to commute two
hours a day from San Francisco's Chinatown to
Alameda to work. Second, she did not think her job
was skilled work. After a while, she realized that it
was not much different from making clothes except
that metal instead of cloth was used. As soon as she
learned that the war was over, she found a new job
working for
an insurance company in San Francisco.
She later married a war veteran and moved with him
to Napa Valley to work
on a small farm.60
Only
a few Chinese American women continued
to work in defense industries after the war. Yuqin Fu
worked as an office clerk at Alameda Naval Air Sta
tion until 1947, when she got married. After a few
years at home taking
care of her children, she found
a
job at Pacific Telephone and Telegraph.61 Born and
SUMMER 1996 151

2013 13:20:30 PM
^^^HF
; v"" %^ v^^HB^%m$',<^&^J&Mt-^^.^*1^B^H^^^^^E-"^^*
schooled in Oakland, Elizabeth Lew Anderson
worked as a metalsmith at the Alameda Naval Air
Station during the
war. She later married a Caucasian
merchant seaman. Although her husband had to
move from one place to another all
over the coun
try (and sometimes outside the country) and Eliza
beth followed him most of the time, she was called
back to work by the Naval Air Station during the
Korean War (and later again, during the Vietnam
War), when her family moved back to the Bay Area.62
Joy Yee continued to work at the Naval Station until
1955, when she was about to have her first child. But

when she stayed at home, she missed her job and her
friends at work. In 1968, she went back to work and
kept her job for another seventeen years until her
retirement. To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the
war, Joy Yee helped organize
a reunion of Chinese
American women who had worked at the Alameda
Naval Air Station during the war.63
A few others, however, were reluctant to leave
their defense jobs. Ah Yoke Gee loved her job in the
shipyard
so much that she would not leave it for any
thing else. She knew that other jobs would not pay
as well. Aimei Chen also wanted to stay at her
defense job. Since
so many white women were then
also job-hunting, the chances for her to find
a
good
job
were slim. By late 1945, however, most of the Bay

Area's defense establishments were about to shut
down, and large-scale lay-offs began. With limited
training and skills, these
women could not find jobs
in other industries; they had to look for jobs that were
traditionally held by
women.
These Chinese American women's wartime work
nevertheless had important consequences: their lives
were no
longer restricted within their ethnic
com
munities. Most of them found jobs outside China
towns as race relations and the economy improved
in the postwar years. Ah Yoke Gee took a job at
a post
office in Berkeley, where she worked until her retire
ment. Meanwhile, she became actively involved in
Berkeley's Chinese American community.64 Aimei
Chen married and moved with her husband to
Berkeley. Under the GI Bill, her husband became
an

engineering student at the University of California.
2013 13:20:30 PM
Aimei found a job
as an office clerk in a small firm,
where she worked until her first child was born.65
Yulan Liu married her former shipyard foreman,
a
white man. The young couple bought
a house in
Vallejo, where Yulan's husband worked
in the Navy
Shipyard
at Mare Island. Yulan worked as a nursing
aide on and off for over thirty years.
Lili Wong,
daughter of
a San Francisco restaurant waiter, left her
job at a Richmond shipyard and went to medical

school. She later moved to Washington, D.C., and
practiced medicine with her husband.66
Their wartime experience gave Chinese American
women confidence and maturity. They found that
they could do the things that men could. Maggie Gee
left the WASPs and went to graduate school
in
Berkeley. She
was not a shy Chinese American girl
anymore and was soon elected president of the Chi
nese Students Association on the Berkeley campus.
Thereafter, she became active in local communities.
She also decided to become a physicist, although
most graduate students
in physics
were men. She
later worked at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory and
was the only
woman physicist there
for many years.67 Jade Snow Wong, however,
was no

longer eager to work outside her ethnic community.
After she left Marinship, she went back
to San Fran
cisco's Chinatown looking for her
own identity. Her
first book was about herself; she wanted the outside
world to know what the life of a Chinese American
was like, especially
a Chinese American woman. It
was at that time that she decided to give up her Eng
lish name "Constance," a name that she had been
known by in school and at Marinship. The girl in her
autobiography
was "Jade Snow," translated origi
nally from her Chinese name.68
While acknowledging that World War II brought
significant changes
to their lives, many Chinese
American women noticed that racial discrimination
and prejudice did
not disappear after the

war.
They
continued in subtle ways. When Maggie Gee and her
sister tried to find an apartment in Berkeley in the
early 1950s, they knew that
some people would not
rent their properties to Chinese Americans.
So they
told people their ethnic identity when they first
inquired
over the telephone. At least in
one case, a
landlady refused
to show the sisters the apartment
when she learned that they
were Chinese.69 Limin
Wong,
a defense worker during the war, remembered
calling
a business firm in Berkeley for
an advertised
office position after the
war. The person who

answered the phone at first told her that the job was
available. When he realized that she was Chinese,
however, he changed his statement and said the posi
tion had been filled. Limin later found a job at the
State Employment Office. She worked there for thirty
years and was the manager of the office before she
retired.70
The young Chinese American women who par
ticipated in defense work had had fresh memories
of discriminatory practices in American society
before the war, and they
were
fully
aware of the polit
ical implications of taking defense jobs. Although
very few of them were able to keep their jobs after
the war, and some of them might not necessarily have
cared about the limited skills that they acquired,
what they had accomplished was far more signifi
cant than the jobs themselves. They
were accepted,
for the first time, as Americans, even though most
of them were born in the U. S. and had been Amer

icans since birth. To a large extent, the
war
provided
an entry for Chinese American women into the
larger American society, something for which their
ancestors had struggled
a hundred years. |chs]
See notes beginning
on page 182.
Xiaojian Zhao is assistant professor of Asian American stud
ies and history at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
She received her Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of
California, Berkeley, in 1993.
SUMMER 1996 153
2013 13:20:30 PM
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspArticle
Contentsp. 138p. 139p. 140p. 141p. 142p. 143p. 144p. 145p.
146p. 147p. 148p. 149p. 150p. 151p. 152p. 153Issue Table of
ContentsCalifornia History, Vol. 75, No. 2 (Summer, 1996), pp.
113-192Front MatterMilestones in California History: The 1846
Bear Flag Revolt: Early Cultural Conflict in CaliforniaFuel at
Last: Oil and Gas for California, 1860s-1940s [pp. 114-
127]Turbulent Waters: Navigation and California's Southern
Central Valley [pp. 128-137]Chinese American Women Defense
Workers in World War II [pp. 138-153]A Tale of Two

Hospitals: U.S. Marine Hospital No. 19 and the U.S. Public
Health Service Hospital on the Presidio of San Francisco [pp.
154-169]ReviewsReview: untitled [p. 170-170]Review: untitled
[p. 171-171]Review: untitled [p. 172-172]Review: untitled [pp.
172-173]Review: untitled [pp. 173-174]Review: untitled [pp.
174-175]Review: untitled [p. 175-175]California Checklist [pp.
177-178]Notes [to the Articles within This Issue] [pp. 180-
187]Corrections to Bloomfield, Moore, Blodgett and Lowell [p.
188-188]Back Matter
Book Reference
Perkinson, R. R. (2012). Chemical dependency counseling: A
practical guide (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
4 The Biopsychosocial Interview
Source: Jupiterimages!fhinkstock.
The Biopsychosocial Interview
Now kick back and relax. Get yourself a cup of coffee. When
the client has settled into treatment, it is time
to hear his or her whole story This is an exciting time because
everyone's story is fascinating, like a detective
story You are searching for the leads necessary to develop a
treatment plan . The biopsychosocial assessment
will be one of the most valuable times you spend with your
client. Every client is interesting and has a never-
ending puzzle of human and environmental interactions. Do not

worry about being bored. This is a great
mystery, and you are the detective. You need to search out and
find the problems.
The purpose of the biopsychosocial is to find out exactly what
the problems are and where they
came from. Then you need to decide what you are going to do
about them. All diseases have bio logical,
psychological, and social factors that contribute to dysfunction.
These ingredients mingle together, leav-
ing the client in a state of "dis -ease ." The client does not feel
easy; he or she feels "dis-easy. " There are
no major psychiatric diseases that do not have biopsychosocial
components. All addiction affects the
cells (bio from biology); the emotions , attitudes, and behavior
(psycho from psychology); and the social
relationships (socio from sociology).
53
54 CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY COUNSELING
To do your biopsychosocial , you will need the Biopsychosocial
Assessment form (see Appendix 31)
and a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. The interview
will take at least 1 hour or maybe more.
Many beginning counselors are bogged down in this interview
because they become overwhelmed with
information or they try to begin treating the problems too early.
This interview is not for treatment ; it
is for assessment . The best way of keeping out of these traps is
to let the client do most of the talking.
You ask the questions and let the client tell his or her story
while yo u write it down. Ask for more infor-

mation only if you are confused or uncertain about what the
client is describing . You must understand
the facts and how the client feels about the situation.
It will take you a while to become a skilled interviewer. It takes
keen insight to see the problems clearly,
as they develop. You will get better at this as you become more
experienced.
How to Conduct the Interview
Begin the biopsychosocial interview by telling the client what
you are going to do: "The purpose of this
interview is to see exactly what the problems are, where they
come from, and what we are going to do in
treatment. From this information, we will develop the treatment
plan. You need to keep things very accurate
here. Just tell me exactly what happened."
Now relax and begin your interview. Do not be in a hurry. This
is fascinating and fun . Ask the following
questions , and write the answers down in the blanks provided
on the biopsychosocial form.
Date:
Client name:
Age:
Sex:
Marital status:
Children:

Residence:
Others in residence:
Length of residence:
Education: Mark the highest grade completed.
Occupation:
Characteristics of the informant: Mark down whether or not you
trust the information that the client
is giving you . Is the client reliable? If so, then write "reliable
informant. " If for some reason you do not
trust the information the client is giving you , then write why
you mistrust it . You might want to write
"questionable informant."
Chief complaint: This is the chief problem that brought the
client to treatment. Use the client's own
words . If someone else gives you the chief complaint, then list
that person as the informant. "What was
the chief problem that brought you to treatment?"
History of the present problem: This is everything that pertains
to the chief complaint. One good
approach with histories is to say something like this: ''As they
are growing up , kids have a real accurate
idea when things are right with them and when things are
wrong. Go back into your childhood and tell
me where you think things began to go wrong for you. From
that point, tell me the whole story includ-
ing what is bringing you into treatment now. "
Let the client tell his or her story, and for the most part, you
just copy it down. Use as many direct

quotes as you can. Guide the client only when you need to do
so. You want the story to flow in a rough
Chapter 4 The Biopsychosocial Interview 55
chronological order. Most clients will do this naturally, but
everyone jumps around a little. Stop the client if
he or she is going too fast or if you do not understand
something. Do not let the client ramble and be caught
up in irrelevant details. Look for the problem areas.
The history of the present problem must contain the following
information:
• Age of onset:
• Duration of use:
• Patterns of use: How does the client drink? Is this client a
binge drinker or a daily drinker? Does the
client drink all day or only after work? How often does the
client drink?
• Consequences of use: These are physical, psychological,
and/or social problems caused or made
worse by drinking.
• Previous treatment: Who did the client see? What was the
treatment? What were the results?
• Blackouts:
• Tolerance:
• Withdrawal symptoms:
Past history: A history of the client's life, from infancy to the
present, is the next phase of the interview.
The categories include the following :

• Place of birth:
• Date of birth:
• Developmental milestones: "Did you have any problems when
you were born? Problems walking,
talking, toilet training, reading, or writing? Did anyone ever say
that you were a slow learner?" Cover
developmental problems and intellectual problems here .
Determine as best you can whether the
client can understand the material presented in your program.
Most recovery material is written at
a sixth-grade level. Clients who read two grade levels below
this are going to need special assistance.
• Raised with: This includes primary caregivers, brothers,
and/or sisters and what it is like to live with them.
• Ethnic/cultural influences: "What is your ethnic heritage?"
This includes race, sexual orienta-
tion, marital status, religious preference, culture, disability/
ability, ethnicity, geographic location,
age, socioeconomic status , and gender. An inner-city black
teenager is going to be a lot different
from a Midwestern farmer. You need to know about the person's
culture and be able to step into
the person's worldview from his or her perspective . How does
the culture relate to things such
as time orientation, family, sharing, cooperation, and taught
customs that guide relationships?
(For further information on cultural differences , read the book
Counseling the Culturally
Different: Theory and Practice [Sue & Sue, 1999]. This book
will help you to become culturally
competent , which is essential to understanding the client and
offering good treatment .)

• Home of origin: "When you were growing up , how did it feel
in the house where you were raised?"
• Grade school: "What kind of a kid were you in grade school?
How did you get along with the other
kids and the teachers?"
• High school: "What kind of a student were you in high school?
Did you get in any trouble?"
• College: "What were you like in college?"
• Military history: "Were you ever in the armed services? For
how long? What was your highest rank?
Did you get an honorable discharge?"
• Occupational history: "Briefly tell me about your work
history. What kind of work have you done?"
Include the longest job held and any consequences of drug or
alcohol use .
• Employment satisfaction: "How long have you been at your
current job? Are you happily employed?"
• Financial history: "How is your current financial situation?"
• Gambling: "Do you gamble? Have you ever tried to cut back
on your gambling?"
• Sexual orientation: "How old were you when you first had
sex? Have you ever had a homosexual contact?"
• Sexual abuse: "Have you ever been sexually abused?"
• Physical abuse: "Have you ever been physically abused?"
• Current sexual history: 'fre you having any sexual problems?
Are you HN infected? Do you have
AIDS or any sexually transmitted disease?"

• Relationship history: Briefly describe this client's relationship
and friendship patterns . Does the client
have any close friends? Is the client in a romantic relationship
now? How is that going? Include con-
sequences of chemical use. Some helpful questions include the
following: "Do you have close friends?
Have you ever been in love? How many times? Tell me a little
bit about each relationship."
• Social support for treatment: "Does your family support you
coming into treatment? What about your
friends?" Thoroughly assess the client's recovery environment.
How supportive are family and friends
going to be about recovery?
• Spiritual orientation: "Do you believe in God or a Higher
Power or anything like that? Do you engage
in any kind of religious activity?"
• Legal: 'fre you having any current problems with the law?
Have you ever been arrested?" List the year
and cause of each arrest.
• Strengths: "What are some of your strengths?"
• Needs: "What are some of the things you need to do to get into
recovery?"
• Abilities: "What are some of your abilities that might help you
stay in recovery?"
• Personal preferences: "How do you prefer to learn a recovery
program, person to person contact,
group therapy, audio visual material, reading, any cultural
preferences . .. ?"
• Weaknesses: "What are some of your weaknesses or some of
your qualities that are not so good?"

• Leisure: "What do you do for play, entertainment, or fun?
What has been the effect of your chemical use?"
• Depression: "Have you ever felt depressed or down most of
the day, almost every day, for more than
2 weeks?" If the client has signs of depression, this needs to be
flagged for the medical staff.
• Mania: "Have you ever felt so high or full of energy that you
got into trouble or people thought that
you were acting strangely?" Mania is a distinct period of
abnormally elevated, expansive, or irritable
mood. This mood must be sustained for at least 2 full days .
• Anxiety disorders: "Have you ever been anxious for a long
time? Have you ever had a panic attack?"
• Eating disorders: "Have you ever had any problems with
appetite or eating, gorging, purging, starving
yourself, or anything like that?"
• Medical history:
• Illnesses: "Have you ever had any physical illnesses? Even the
small ones, such as measles, mumps, or
chicken pox?"
• Hospitalizations: "Have you ever been in a hospital
overnight?" Write down the reason for each
hospitalization.
• Allergies: "Do you have any allergies?"
• Medications at present: 'fre you taking any medication?" List
each medication and dose schedule.
• Family history:
• Father: "How old is your father? Is he in good, fair, or poor
health? Any health problems? What is he

like? How did he act when you were growing up?"
• Mother: "How old is your mother? Is she in good, fair, or poor
health? What was she like when you
were growing up?"
• Other relatives with significant psychopathology: "Did anyone
else in your family have any problems
with drugs or alcohol or any other kind of mental disorder?"
• Mental status: This is where you formally test the client's
mental condition.
• Description of the client: Describe the client's general
appearance. How would you be able to pick
the client out of a crowd? Note the client's age, skin color, sex,
weight, hair color, eye color, scars,
glasses, mustache, and so on.
• Dress: How is the client dressed? Describe what the client is
wearing and how he or she is dressed.
Is the client overly neat, sloppy, casual, seductive, or formal?
• Sensorium: Is the client fully conscious and able to use his or
her senses normally, or does something
seem to be clouding the client's sensorium? Is the client alert,
lethargic, or drowsy? Intoxicated clients
will not have a clear sensorium.
• Orientation: The client is oriented to person, place, and time if
the client knows his or her name and
location and today's date.

• Attitude toward the examiner: What is the client 's attitude
toward you-cooperative, friendly,
pleasant, hostile, suspicious, or defensive?
• Motor behavior: Describe how the client is moving. Anything
unusual? Does the client move
normally, restlessly, continuously, or slowly? Does the client
have a tremor or tic?
• Speech: How does the client talk? Any speech or language
problems? Does the client talk normally, or
is he or she overly talkative or minimally responsive? Do you
detect a speech disorder?
• Affect: How is the client feeling during the interview-
appropriate, blunted, restricted, labile, or
dramatic over production?
• Range of affect: What is the client's capacity to feel the whole
range of feelings? Affect ranges from
elation to depression . During the interview, you should see the
client cover a wide range of affect.
Does the client's range of feelings seem normal , constricted,
blunted, or flat?
• Mood: What is the feeling that clouds the client's whole life?
The client might be calm, cheerful,
anxious, depressed, elated, irritable, pessimistic, angry, neutral
, or any other sustained feeling.
• Thought processes: Does the client have a normal stream of
thought? Is the client able to come up
with clear ideas, form these ideas into speech, and move the
speech into normal conversation? If the
client is hard to follow, then write down why. Describe what the
client is doing that makes the con-

versation difficult. Are the client's thought processes logical
and coherent, blocked, circumstantial,
tangential, incoherent, distracted , evasive, or persevered?
• Abstract thinking: "What does this saying mean to you?
People who live in glass houses shouldn't
throw stones. " An abstract answer might be, "Do not talk about
people because you might have prob-
lems yourself. " A concrete answer might be, "They might break
the glass. " Ask the client, "How are
an egg and a seed alike?" An abstract answer might be , "Things
grow from both." A concrete answer
might be, "They are both round. " Using such questions ,
determine the client's ability to abstract. Is it
normal, or is it impaired?
• Suicidal ideation: "Have you ever thought about hurting
yourself or anything like that?" Describe all
suicidal thoughts, acts, plans, and attempts.
• Homicidal ideation: "Have you ever thought about hurting
someone else?" Describe all thoughts,
acts, plans , and attempts .
• Disorders of perception: Disorders in how the client perceives
can be assessed by asking questions
such as the following . "Have you ever seemed to hear things
that other people could not seem to
hear, like whispering voices or anything like that? Have you
ever seemed to see things that other
people could not seem to see , like a vision? Have you ever
smelled a strange smell that seemed out
of place? Have you ever tasted a strange taste that seemed out
of place? Have you ever felt anything
unusual on or under your skin?"

• Delusions: "Have you ever felt that anyone was paying special
attention to you or anything like that?
Have you ever felt that someone was out to hurt you or give you
a hard time? Have you ever felt like
you had any strange or unusual powers? Have you ever felt like
one of the organs in your body was
not operating properly?" A delusion is a false belief that is
fixed.
• Obsessions: "Have you ever been bothered by thoughts that
did not make any sense , and they
kept coming back even when you tried not to think about them?
Have you ever had awful
thoughts like hurting someone or being contaminated by germs
or anything like that?" Obsessions
are persistent ideas , thoughts , impulses, or images that are
experienced, at least at first, as intru-
sive and senseless.
• Compulsions: "Was there anything that you had to do
repeatedly and you could not stop doing it, like
washing your hands repeatedly or checking something several
times to make sure you had done it
right?" Compulsions are repetitive, purposeful, and intentional
behaviors that are performed in
response to an obsession, according to certain rules , or in a
stereotyped fashion.
• Intelligence: Estimate the client's level of intellectual
functioning-above average, average, low
average , borderline , or retarded.

• Concentration: Describe the client's ability to concentrate
during the interview- normal, mild, moderate,
or severe impairment.
• Memory:
a. Immediate memory: Tell the client, "Listen carefully. I am
going to say some numbers. You say
them right after me: 5- 8- 9- 3- 1." Mter the client has
completed this task, tell him or her, "Now I
am going to say some more numbers. This time I want you to
say them backward: 4- 3- 9." Clients
should be able to repeat five digits forward and three digits
backward.
b . Recent memory: Tell the client, "I am going to give you
three objects that I want you to
remember: a red ball, an open window, and a police car. Now
you remember those, and I will
ask you what they are in a few minutes." Clients should be able
to remember all three objects
after 5 minutes.
c. Remote memory: The client should be able to tell you what
he or she had for dinner last night or
for breakfast this morning. The client should know the names of
the last five presidents of the
United States. The client should know his or her own history.
• Impulse control: Estimate the ability of the client to control
his or her impulses.
• judgment: Estimate the client's ability to make good
judgments. If you cannot estimate from the
interview, then ask the client a question. "If you were at the
movies and were the first person to see

smoke and fire, what would you do?" The client should give a
good answer that protects both himself
or herself and the other people present.
• Insight: Does the client know that he or she has a problem
with chemicals? Does the person understand
something about the nature of the illness?
• Motivation for treatment: Is the client committed to treatment?
Estimate the level of treatment
acceptance or resistance.
Summary and Impression
Begin with the client's childhood and summarize all that you
have heard and observed. Include all
of the problems you have seen and give your impression of
where the client stands on each of the
following dimensions :
1. Acute intoxication or withdrawal complications
2. Biomedical conditions and complications
3. Emotional/cognitive/behavioral conditions and complications
4. Readiness to change
5. Relapse, continued use, or continued problem potential
6. Recovery environment
Diagnosis
Diagnose the problem using the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM- N - TR)

(2000).
Disposition and Treatment Plan
List and describe all of the problems that need treatment and
how you plan to treat each problem.
A Sample Biopsychosocial Interview
'S.ow let us go through an actual interview so that you can see
how it works. We describe how you should be
thinking as we go through the interview.
The client comes into the office. She is tall and thin and is
dressed in white jeans and a white sweatshirt.
She smiles as she sits down. She makes good eye contact and
relaxes. Her face is pretty. She does not appear
w be in any acute distress.
Counselor: Give me your full name-all three names please-and
spell them all.
Client: Jane J-A-N-E Roberts R-0-B-E-R-T-S.
Counselor: How old are you?
Client: Twenty-eight. (fhe client seems to relax even more. She
sits farther back in the chair and
crosses her legs.)
Counselor: Are you married?

Client: No.
Counselor: Have you ever been?
Client: No.
Counselor: Do you have any kids?
Client: No.
Counselor: What is your current hometown?
Client: Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Counselor: Who lives with you?
Client: No one.
Counselor: How long have you lived there?
Client: About 5 years.
Counselor: How much education do you have?
Client: High school.
Counselor: Are you currently employed?
Client: Yes.
Counselor: What do you do?
Client: I am a self-employed beautician.
Counselor: What was the chief problem that brought you to
treatment?

Client: I knew I could not go on drinking the way I was.
Counselor: When kids are growing up, they have a real accurate
idea of when things are right with them
and wrong with them. Go back into your childhood as early as
you feel is important and tell
me where you think things began to go wrong with you in your
life, and from that point, tell
me the whole story including what brings you to treatment now.
60
Client:
CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY COUNSELING
I think that as a child I do not remember an awful lot about my
childhood. I do not remember
many good things. I did not have a bad childhood. I have never
been abused physically or
sexually or anything like that. But I always felt left out,
abandoned, lost, alone a lot. (This is
where the problems start. The client grew up feeling left out,
abandoned, lost, and alone.)
I think I knew that I was loved, but I was not shown it very
much . Going to a Lutheran school
was hard on me. I never felt like I was like the other kids. (The
client continues to feel isolated
in school.)
One year I was a class officer, and that made me feel very good.
I was not sports-minded. I did

not feel that anyone was working with me with what I could do.
My father died when I was a
baby. My mother did not listen to me. I would ask her a
question , and she would just look at
me. I could never get any answers . (This seems to be where the
client began to feel unheard,
abandoned, and lost.) I remember asking her about how boys
and girls were different. She just
said, "Don 't you know?" I never got any information about my
period. I did not get it until I was
old anyway, about 17, and by then I had to find out some things
from my friends. I read a book
about how to take care of myself. (The client is angry with her
mother. This may or may not
have influenced her drinking It certainly increased her feelings
of isolation and loneliness,
and it influenced her ability to establish and maintain close
interpersonal relationships.)
I hear from other members of my family that my father was
strict. I did not hear good things
about him, but I did not hear bad things either. He did not like
drinking, and my mom would
hide her alcohol from him. (The client seems to long for her
father. It is in the sadness of her
voice. Her mother might have had a drinking problem. It sounds
as though it caused some
family conflict.)
I think my mom talked to me about this . She may have had a
problem. She hid her wine bottle
down in the basement. Going through school was hard because I
did not fit in with the group.
I remember making up stories and trying to buy the clothes they
wore to fit in, but I never did .
They all caught on about what I was trying to do . It did not

work. I could not afford many
things. When I was older, I was very glad to get out of the
house. I did not date much, but when
I did, I immediately fell in love. I felt like, great, somebody
likes me. When they would go out
with others, I was devastated. I kept grasping at them to come
back. (These relationships
sound addictive. This is a problem. Listen to the powerful
feeling statements she makes:
"When they would go out with others, I was devastated. I kept
grasping at them to come
back. " The client begins to use relationships to fill the empty
void. She is trying to replace her
dead father and her distant mother with a relationship with a
man.)
One day my girlfriend and I were eating lunch, and these guys
came up to us. They asked if we
wanted to go out for a ride and have a few drinks with them.
They were cute, you know, so we
decided to go. There was this one, he said his name was Mark,
he was older, and we got along really
well. He impressed me. I could tell he really liked me a lot,
more so than anyone else I had ever
dated. I ended up going with him for quite a while. About a year
later, I found out he was married.
His name was not Mark. It was Andy. He had a wife and a kid. I
finally called him up and told him
that I knew the truth but that I loved him anyway. This was a
very passionate man. He loved me.
He showed me he loved me. I do not care what you say-he was
able to love two people at the
same time. (The client becomes involved in another addictive
relationship. This time it is with a
man who is addictive himself The intense sexual excitement that
this man offers fools her into

thinking that he really loves her.)
We continued that relationship for a long time. There was a lot
of pain in that relationship. I just
broke up with him about 2 years ago.
Counselor: When did you start dating him?
Client: When I was about 21, I went with him for 4 years, and
two of those years he was married , 2 he
was not. (This is passive and dependent? She does not look
passive. She makes good eye con-
tact and seems to feel comfortable. We must let the story unfold
to get the answer.)
Counselor: How old were you when you first had a drink?
Client: It was in my early teens , at a party.
Counselor: Did you drink much in high school?
Client: No, only very occasionally.
Counselor: Okay, go on with your story You are going out with
Andy, and Andy's married.
Client: We kept seeing each other. He kept promising that he
was going to get a divorce. He did not
want to lose me. It kept going on for years and years. I would
get angry with him when I found
out that he was seeing somebody else other than his wife and
me. I would blow up , then I

would finally settle down, and we would continue to see each
other. Every time I would get
frustrated with him , I would seek someone else out.
I would find someone else who was interested in me. I had
several affairs. Andy would get very
angry if he found out that I was dating someone, but I felt he
did not have the right to get
angry He was married. (There is an honesty problem here. The
client was lying to both men.)
I went out with this guy once. He was everything I had ever
dreamed of. He was tall and dark
with a hairy chest. He was beautiful. I went out with him for
quite a while. He really liked me ,
but I kept seeing Andy. The relationship with this guy, the new
guy, Rob, began to get abusive.
The relationship with Andy was abusive, too. They would both
hit me, slap me, sometimes.
They both tried to choke me. A couple of times, they raped me
out of anger. Andrew was not
ever a violent person, but then all of a sudden he got violent. He
put me down a lot. He put
me down all the time.
Counselor: Did he make important choices for you? (The
counselor probes the dependency problem.)
Client: No, I never did that.
Counselor: Is it hard for you to make decisions without some
sort of reassurance from someone else?
Client: No , I do not have any problem there , but I am attracted
to men with power. They can tell me
anything, and I would believe it. I do not know what it is about

powerful men, but I am real
attracted to that. Andy finally got a divorce , and I lived with
him. He is a banker and very
wealthy I thought things were going to be a lot better. He was
still controlling and manipula-
tive , but I thought everything was going to improve. I always
knew that eventually I was going
to be abandoned. (Here we see the fuel for the addictive
relationship. The client chronically
fears abandonment, like the abandonment that she felt as a
child. This leaves her feeling
anxious and vulnerable. She will do anything to keep her man,
but at the same time, she
fears that she will lose him.)
He was very demanding, but I could get what I wanted by being
very diplomatic. It took me a
long time to learn how to do that. He always wanted me to do
all kinds of things. I kept the
house and the grounds immaculate. I worked and kept house and
did the yardwork and
worked at my job. (The client is not assertive. She has learned
how to lie and manipulate to
get what she wants.)
All this time, I was drinking a lot. I was hiding my drinking. I
would hide my beer cans .
Sometimes he would come home , and I would be drunk.
Counselor: How much were you drinking then?
Client: At least a six-pack.

Counselor: Did you ever have a blackout?
Client: Oh, yeah , I had plenty
Counselor: Did you ever have a real bad hangover?
Client: Yes.
Counselor: Hands ever get shaky?
Client: No, but I would be sick. I would feel terrible-headache,
upset stomach.
Counselor: What happened then?
Client: I came home one night and caught him with another
woman. He denied what was going on,
but I knew. I could tell from her reaction that she did not know
about me . I talked to her, and
in time we both got together with him again . I swear to God, he
has the ability to love two
women at the same time. I can tell he loves me.
Counselor: Healthy relationships are based on trust.
Client: I know that. This woman and I were never mad at each
other. We both knew that he was so
intense that he could love us both .
Counselor: It is not right to lie to you .
Client: I like that. That makes sense. I finally broke up with him
. I did not know anyone. It was very
hard, but I did it. He was furious. That was the last time he
raped me. He was out of his mind.

Counselor: You do not rape somebody that you love either.
Client: It was finally over. I fell in love with a new guy, Dave. I
fell in love so fast. He was a dream come
true. We had long talks about things . This guy did not work out
because I realized that I was
doing all of the giving again. I am starting to realize my pattern.
I do all the giving, and I love
men with power. It took me a long time to realize that. He
would go to my house , watch Tv,
and eat all my food. He never took me anywhere. I said, 'he you
getting tired of me or what?"
I realized that there was something I was not getting here. I had
such feelings for David. I can-
not remember ever feeling like that. He was such a heartthrob.
Counselor: It is easy to get love and lust confused. (The
counselor continues to teach the client and to
show her how she has been confused about relationships. Notice
that these interventions are
very brief This is not the time for therapy. It is the time for
assessment.)
Client: That relationship ended, and I started going out with
another guy. He was an alcoholic in
recovery, so I cut down on my drinking some. I only saw him
once a week. It was nice. One
night Andy just walked in on us. It was crazy He just came right
in as if he owned the place . I
had my own place then. I was finally making the break with
him, and he could not believe it.
Bryan handled it very well. Andy finally left. You know, I like
a man with power. I have this thing
about a man with power. I do not know what it is.

Counselor: Well , you have felt powerless in your life. Someone
with power would make you feel safe.
Client: Yeah, a strong man makes me feel safe. Anyway, my
drinking kept on increasing, my relation-
ships kept going to hell , and here I am.
Counselor: Anything in particular bring you into treatment now?
Client: I went out and got drunk again, and I woke up with such
a hangover. I said to myself, I have
to do something about this, now. I made the call right then.
Chapter 4 The Biopsychosoc ial Interview 63
This concluded the history of the present problem. Then the
counselor moved righ t into the
history.
Counselor: Where were you born?
Client: Livingston, South Dakota.
Counselor: When is your birthday?
Client: June 28, 1983 .
Counselor: Did you have any trouble when you were born?
Client: No.
Counselor: Any trouble walking, talking, toilet training,
reading, or writing?

Client: No.
Counselor: You were raised with whom?
Client: My mother and two younger sisters .
Counselor: What is your ethnic heritage? Irish? German? Do
you know?
Client: I am Irish.
Counselor: Your home of origin, growing up with your mother
and sisters. How did it feel in that house?
Client: I felt alone. I did not like it.
Counselor: What kind of a kid were you in grade school?
Client: I was timid, not very outgoing.
Counselor: What kind of a kid were you in high school?
Client: I was scared, scared to relate.
Counselor: You seem to have made real progress with that timid
thing. You do not seem timid anymore.
Client: Yeah, I really have. I do not think I am timid anymore.
Counselor: Great. Were you ever in the armed services?
Client: No.
Counselor: Ever go to college .
Client: No.

Counselor: Give me a brief occupational history. What kind of
work have you done?
Client: I worked as a secretary for 5 years. I have been at my
current job for about 5 years.
Counselor: Are you happily employed?
Client: Yeah, I like my job.
Counselor: How is your current financial situation?
Client: Good. I am not rich, b ut I get along okay.
Counselor: Do you have any sexual p roblems?
Client: No.
Counselor: Have you ever had a homosexual contact?
Client: No.
Counselor: Are you currently involved with a guy?
Client: Yes.
Counselor: How long has that been going on?
Client: About 3 months.
Counselor: And how is that going?

Client: Great.
Counselor: Do your friends and family support your coming into
treatment?
Client: Yes .
Counselor: Do you feel like there is any kind of a Higher Power
or God or anything?
Client: I believe in God.
Counselor: Do you attend church?
Client: I go to the Lutheran church.
Counselor: Are you having any problems with the law?
Client: No.
Counselor: Have you ever had any problems with the law in the
past.
Client: No.
Counselor: What are some of your strengths or some of your
good qualities?
Client: I am caring. I get along with people real well. I think I
am intelligent.
Counselor: What are some of your weaknesses?
Client: A drinking problem.

Counselor: What do you enjoy doing for fun?
Client: I enjoy biking. I hike and jog.
Counselor: Have you ever had a period of time where you felt
down or depressed most of the day most
every day?
Client: No.
Counselor: Have you ever felt real anxious?
Client: No.
Counselor: Ever felt so high or filled with energy that you got
into trouble or people thought you were
acting strangely?
Client: No.
Counselor: Ever had any eating problems-gorging, purging,
starving yourself, anything like that?
Client: No.
Counselor: Are you intensely afraid of anything?
Client: No.
Counselor: Ever had any illnesses , even the small ones-
measles, mumps, or chicken pox?

Client: Measles, mumps, and chicken pox.
Counselor: Ever been in a hospital overnight?
Client: No.
Counselor: Do you have any allergies?
Client: No.
Counselor: Are you taking any kind of medication here?
Client: They have me on a Valium come-down schedule.
Counselor: For what?
Client: I have been taking Valium for about 5 years. I am
withdrawing from that. (Current problems
are covered in the history of the present problem. The counselor
did not know about the
Valium until now. This happens often. The counselor now has to
flip back to the history of the
present problem and add this part.)
Counselor: How much of the Valium were you using?
Client: I was using it every day for sleep.
Counselor: Did you find yourself using more?
Client: Yes, I had to increase what I took so it would work.
Counselor: Twice as much?
Client: More.

Learning Resources· Perkinson, R. R. (2012). Chemical dependency.docx

Learning Resources· Perkinson, R. R. (2012). Chemical dependency.docx

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