The Pros And Cons Of Motivational Interviewing

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.

In other words, a criminal can easily lie and claim that they’ve changed, most likely just to get out of any real punishment, when in fact, they haven’t changed at all, and they might not ever change. This results in a complete waste of time and money.

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 discussion of the video below is in accordance with the Motivational Interviewing Reflection Tool (MIRT).

Miller W. & Rollnick S. (2002) Motivational Interviewing. 2nd edn. The Guilford Press, New York.

An interview utilizing motivational interviewing techniques was conducted by a nurse practitioner student and a consenting patient. The patient is a 55-year-old, male, with occupation as a heating, ventilation, and air conditioner technician that the nurse practitioner student identified on physical examination to have mild hearing loss. Hearing protection is admittedly not worn consistently at the jobsite during the history taking portion of the exam. This paper will discuss the behavioral health problem of noncompliance with hearing protection, the evidence supporting motivational interviewing strategies to support behavior change, and a discussion of the techniques used during the interview.

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.

According to Laub and Sampson, “persistent offenders come to change their life course and desist from crime” (Cullen, et al., 2014, p. 545). There are four features that are described for this change process. First, an offender experiences a turning point in their life (marriage, job, family). Secondly, the individual is exposed to an informal social control because of this turning point. Third, the individuals routine activities are changed and now unstructured toward where they once were (bars), Now they are more responsible. Lastly, there is the individuals commitment to their new

Problem: ethical issues and probationers reoffending and also communication. The ethics concerning the agency being violated are sexual harassment in workplace, drug use, alcohol use, and financial because of drugs.

There are many options a judge might choose as punishment or rehabilitation for an offender other than having the offender complete his or her whole sentence in jail or be sent to jail or prison all together. Some options the judge might decide to use are parole, probation, community correction, and many other forms of sentencing him or her might hand down to an offender. There is always a better solution to the current methods of parole process, probation system, and the community corrections options. Like everything else the only way to improve a system is to continue to come with better solutions or more effective and affiant ways to run each sentencing options.

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.

Probation and parole face the struggle of how to properly deal with probationers and parolees. This is no small task; there are always complications along the way to the habilitation/rehabilitation of an individual. The problems might be personal emotional issues, or they could be problems in the form of future arrests. While we cannot change who the individuals on parole or probation are, we can provide them with incentives to motivate them to want to change. We can also provide well-trained officers to help parolees and probationers to become habilitated/rehabilitated in the best way possible. However, this is very

While probation only lasts a short period, there is still a lasting effect that many criminals have as a result of probation which stays with them throughout their life. Probation officers simply help with the transition from criminal back to citizen, allowing many offenders a second chance at life, rather than incarceration” (Rohan, 2014).

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