As I mentioned in last month’s issue, I had knee replacement surgery in September. Both my time in the hospital and as an out patient gave me personal experience with “good” MI and “not-so-good” MI. Of course I don’t know which of my caregivers had MI training, but I can tell you that I liked some of […]
The “Righting Reflex” in Motivational Interviewing
As health care providers we sometimes (or maybe often) feel a strong urge to tell our clients what to do. After all, we have been trained to know what would be best for our clients. We’ve worked hard to learn our craft, and have strong feelings about what behaviors clients should change. We want them to feel this […]
MI Practice Tip: Engagement
The basic process of MI, engagement,is the foundation of your relationship with your client, and all that builds on it. To be an effective agent of change, the practitioner must demonstrate engagement at every opportunity, by letting the client know that they are listening and understand the meaning of the proposed change to the client. […]
Motivational Interviewing: Converting Questions to Statements
In October, I attended the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) annual conference in Atlanta, GA. As always, I felt invigorated and refreshed about my ability to teach and train others in MI , and learned many new ideas. Over the next few posts, I will tell you about some of them. One set of […]
Using “Wiggle Words” in Motivational Interviewing
An important tenant of MI is that we do not tell others what to do. Who wants to be told what to do, anyway? Even kids don’t like it. Telling others what to do is often rude and disrespectful. Let me be very clear, however. If your job as a health care provider is to […]
