I’ve been working on getting my social media, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, up to date for my Motivational Interviewing training business. I must admit, I find it all a bit overwhelming! I do want to connect with people who are interested in MI, but I just really want to teach!
I’ve found over the past 1o years or so, that my real love in my work is being a TEACHER. Right now, I’m enjoying teaching my Northeastern University students nutrition, and conducting MI trainings for a variety of organizations around the country.
This week, I will be at Fallon Community Health conducting an intermediate MI training. These will be people who have had an Intro training, either with me or elsewhere, and want to improve their skills. These are really fun trainings to conduct. Participants have had experience with the basics of MI, have had a chance to practice and experiment in their relationships with patients, and now want to solidify and advance those skills. I love that!
On March 5, I will be in Keene, NH, teaching the New Hampshire Dietetic Interns. This is another group I love to work with. DIs are eager for improvement of their counseling skills. They haven’t had a lot of time as professionals to learn “bad habits”, and so have a lot less to “unlearn” that some who have been working for a while. Those “bad habits” are the traditional medical model of “I’m in charge, do what I say, or bad things will happen!”. Using MI, we work with patients to help them decide if, when and how they will change. This is quite different, and allows the patient to be in charge of their lives.
Isn’t that what we really want? Patients/clients who feel in control and in charge of their health and their lives. Empowered.
