Motivational Interviewing

The official definition: MI is a client centered directive method for enhancing intrinsic motivation to change by exploring and resolving ambivalence.

MI is client-centered or person-centered in its focus on the concerns and perspectives of the individual. In this way, motivational interviewing is an evolution of the client-centered counseling approach that Carl Rogers developed. Motivational interviewing does not focus on teaching new coping skills, reshaping cognitions, or excavating the past, I use TA and cognitive therapy for that. It is instead focused on the person's present interests and concerns. Whatever discrepancies are explored and developed have to do with incongruities among aspects of the person's own experiences and values, for example between Parent and Child ego states.

MI differs from the Rogerian method as MI is consciously directive. The terms "client-centered" and "non-directive" are sometimes used interchangeably, but they refer to different aspects of counseling style. MI addresses the resolution of ambivalence, often in a particular direction of change. The therapist elicits and selectively reinforces what we call change talk, and then responds to resistance in a way that is intended to diminish it. MI involves skillfully responding to what a person says in a way that resolves ambivalence and moves the person toward change.

MI is a method of communication rather than a set of techniques. It is not a bag of tricks for getting people to do what they don't want to do. It is not something that I do to people; rather, it is a way of being with and for people - a facilitative approach to communication that evokes natural change. The focus is on eliciting the person's intrinsic motivation for change.

MI focuses on exploring and resolving ambivalence as a key in eliciting change. It centers on the motivational processes within the individual that facilitate change. The motivational interviewing method is not used to impose change that is inconsistent with the person's own values and beliefs. In this way it differs from coercive methods for motivating change. Unless a change in some way is in the person's inherent interest, it will not happen. Within motivational interviewing, change arises through its relevance to the person's own values and concerns, and in my setting, the therapeutic goals.