Motivational Interviewing Skills

Psychologists William Miller, PhD. and Stephen Rollnick, PhD. developed the counseling approach known as Motivational Interviewing (MI). Motivational Interviewing evolved out of experience in the treatment of persons who were problem drinkers, and was first described by Miller in 1983. In 1991 Miller and Rollnick provided these techniques as a method that promotes and engages intrinsic motivation within the client in order to change behavior. MI is a client-centered counseling style that is goal -directed and brings about behavior change by helping clients to explore and resolve ambivalence. Traditional Rogerian client-centered therapy does not guide or direct or focus in the way that MI therapists do to influence individuals to consider making changes, instead of non-directively explore themselves.

Motivational interviewing is a way of conducting and occupy the essential motivation within the client in order to change behavior. It is “an efficient and collaborative style of clinical interaction that can boost the effectiveness of the therapeutic alliance” (Jellinek, Henderson, Dilallo, & Weiss, 2009, p.108). Motivational

The idea of motivational interviewing builds on Rogers' theories about people having freedom of choice and changing through the process of self-actualisation (Davidson, 1994). Miller and Rollnik (1991) describe it as a technique in which the heath practitioner becomes a helper in the change process while expressing acceptance of their client. A central goal of motivational interviewing, says Geldard & Geldard (2012), is to help resolve the ambivalence which prevents clients from realising their personal goals and to facilitate positive change. Motivational interviewing is mostly utilised to counsel those troubled by addiction (not just substance, but also behaviours).

Solution-Focused Interviewing, The Transtheoretical Model, and Motivational Interviewing are three approaches used by practitioners to assist and guide people in changing their behavior. Each approach has its own format and process and this paper will compare and contrast some similarities and differences between these three approaches. This will be done by looking at five client scenarios and comparing and contrasting them with the approaches. The five client scenarios are; the client who wants something and sees themselves as part of the solution, the client who says someone else needs to change, the client who seems uninterested or resistant to changing, the client who wants what is not good for them and finally the client who does not seem to want anything.

The spirit of motivational interviewing (MI), which entails collaboration, evocation and autonomy, is the fundamental approach to elicit intrinsic motivations (1, 2). Throughout the video, the therapist appears to have applied the MI spirit in accordance with Miller and Rollnick (2). The therapist firstly created an encouraging atmosphere for change by monitoring and accommodating the client’s aspirations (collaboration). The therapist then evoked the client’s motivation through their perceptions, goals and values (evocation) and also informed about the right for self-direction leading to commitment to change (Autonomy). However, to sustain the MI spirit, a breakdown of the requirements will be discussed below.

Although motivational interviewing is a great model and can be used with many different populations, it tends to work better with older adults and adolescents who have been through substance abuse for example and also for treating people who overeat (9.Rockville 1999). Due to the fact that most techniques are on length limited treatment, for example AA meetings or other substance abuse sessions. Although most research has been done with adolescents and older adults, it is not limited to just these populations per se it has just been proven to work best with them. Motivational interviewing has a lot to say about multicultural practice, it works with all cultures. It is all about learning different ways to approach different For the purpose of

McCabe C. (2004) Nurse-patient communication: an exploration of patients’ experiences. Journal of Clinical Nursing. 13, 41-49.

This closely simulated a patient interaction with candid answers and the presence of other family members. It was most challenging to calculate the responsive statement to use while maintaining the direction of the interview. Motivational interviewing techniques employed in this interaction include the use of open ended questions to encourage change talk from the patient, affirmation of the patient’s honesty and accountability, reflective statements to show active listening and to illicit further change talk from the patient, and the use of summarization to communicate the patient’s identified growth (Miller & Rollnick, 2013). Transcending these techniques was the spirit of motivational interviewing that communicated acceptance to the patient, guiding versus directing communication, and the support of self-efficacy (Miller & Rollnick, 2013). This was done by first asking permission to discuss the topic and was then carried through the

The process of motivational interviewing is essentially about creating "intrinsic motivation to change" within the client (Moyers, 1998). The choice to change must originate with the client and the process for helping this occur begins with motivational interviewing. There are two phases within motivational interviewing, the first focuses on increasing the client’s motivation to change and the second phase is negotiating a plan and consolidating commitment. It is important to understand the traps that can be encountered within this process, such as the question/answer trap. In this trap the client is led by the counselor with little chance to have free speech to explain themselves because the counselor is just focused on the next question instead of focusing on where the client is leading them. This trap is very similar to the expert trap in the fact that the client is left to believe they cannot find answers for themselves; they instead must listen to the expert who is giving them the answers. This is most definitely not the way to motivate a client to make changes for themselves. Other traps include premature focus, denial, labeling, and blaming; all of which can prevent the client from opening up in the treatment process.

Motivational interviewing recognizes and accepts the fact that clients who need to make changes in their lives approach counseling at different levels of readiness to change their behavior. During counseling, some patient may have thought about it but not taken steps to change it while some especially those voluntarily seeking counseling, may be actively trying to change their behavior and may have been doing so unsuccessfully for years. In order

Combined Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy with Older Adult Drug and Alcohol Abusers is an article written by Lyle Cooper concerning the abuse or misuse of illicit drugs, prescription medications, and alcohol in older populations. Due to lack of knowledge or resources, elderly individuals are falling victim to substance use problems and the numbers are projected to rise. Therefore, an assistance program called HeLP was created to provide evidence-based treatment to the specific cohort of 50 and up age range. Motivational interviewing is used to eliminate internal uncertainties clients may have concerning their treatment; hence, opening themselves up to behavioral changes. Clients who decide to move on to the next stage and if HeLP workers deem it necessary, cognitive-behavioral therapy is implemented to promote changes in thoughts, behaviors, and prevention of future relapse.

Motivational interviewing is a counseling approach that was studied and understood as an applicable theory of practice that would be beneficial in the environment where I currently work which is an alcohol treatment facility. Whereas, it is understood that clinical and applied aspects of Motivational Interviewing (MI) have shown effective as a relatively brief intervention (Levensky, Cavasos, & Brooks, 2008), especially those dealing with an alcohol dependency. According to Miller and Roderick, MI, has been defined mostly as a directive, client centered counseling approach for eliciting behavior change by helping clients to explore and resolve ambivalence. In addition, with its goal-orientated approach it can help break down resistance to change (Corey, 2013, pp. 191-194). This theoretical approach is the most favored for the environment in my profession of choice, in addition, integrating it with the practice of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) which is already in use.

Health coaching is a new phenomenon in health care field. However, it has been applied in insurance industry, banking and other business ventures. In health care, the coaching is designed to help patients participate in their own health management. They participate in gaining skills, knowledge, confidence and tools that can help them cope well with the illness. When conducting the health care coaching, the instructor should ask questions that enable the participants to answer and express themselves in an easier way. Such are normally straight forward and simple. This essay addresses some of the sample questions that can be asked during health coaching.

Motivational Interviewing (MI) refers to a client centred counselling approach, which is directed to enhance motivation in an individual for behaviour change Miller & Rollnick (as cited in Christopher & Dougher, 2009). MI as a method understands and accepts that the clients are at different levels of readiness to change their behavior. It consistently focuses on goals to prepare the client for transformation by providing motivation for commitment to change (Bricker & Tollison, 2011) in the domains of substance abuse, addiction and risky health problems. It proceeds to make the client aware of the causes, consequences and risks that could be a result of the behavior. Through this, the client foresees the possibilities of enhancement and becomes motivated to achieve it (Jenson, Cushing, Aylward, Craig, Sorell & Steel, 2011). MI is coherent with the

Jen greets the client politely and confirms the client's established account and the username we have on file.