As a student I was taught that ambivalence in my clients is bad, and my job was to convince them that they should want to change, for their own good. In this model of a clinician/client relationship, the clinician is responsible for whether or not the patient changes their behavior. From an MI point of […]
Using MI in Brief Encounters
One of the challenging things about learning Motivational Interviewing can be using the spirit and techniques when you have a limited amount of time with a client. I often hear how MI “won’t work in my setting because our visits are short. We have to just tell them what to do.” Examples are an emergency […]
Improving Your MI Skills
I’m often asked about the best ways to Learn Motivational Interviewing. The first and simplest is to read about MI. But, that alone won’t make you proficient. It’s the consistent practice with others and working with a good MI trainer that leads to proficiency. You can be sure of high quality work from a professional […]
Giving Advice in Motivational Interviewing
Learning how to give advice in a Motivational Interviewing consistent way can be one of the hardest things to learn. Many of us are trained to give advice and ask questions, two things we do very sparingly in MI. At first it seems like these are easiest, and they may be, but they are among […]
“Educating” Our Clients
“You know that I don’t believe that anyone has ever taught anything to anyone. The only thing that I know is that anyone who wants to learn will learn. And maybe a teacher is a facilitator, a person who puts things down and shows people how exciting and wonderful it is” ― Carl R. Rogers The […]
