What is Motivational Interviewing?

For many people, it’s easy to set goals. However, actually achieving those goals can be difficult. Low self-esteem and unrealistic expectations have the power to hold many individuals back from reaching their full potential.

Luckily, there are counseling techniques that specifically address this phenomenon. At Banyan Mental Health, we offer motivational interviewing therapy options to develop a sense of patient empowerment so that people feel more equipped to address the situations at hand. Read on to learn more about this incredible care option.

How Motivational Interviewing Works

What is Motivational Interviewing? Motivational Interviewing is a therapy approach that helps patients identify problems, develop goals, and set a plan to achieve those goals. This therapy approach is very verbal and patient-driven, helping patients to feel more capable of enacting real change in their lives. Motivational interviewing involves four main processes:

1. Engaging: The first stage helps patients discuss their issues, problems, and hopes. This is done in a non-judgmental fashion so that a greater sense of patient empowerment is achieved. Supporting autonomy is another key factor in this stage.
2. Focusing: A therapist then helps the patient to focus on opportunities for change and growth, often working to change negative habits and thought patterns. Collaboration between the client and counselor is also crucial to determine a shared purpose, which grants the worker the ability to apply a more directional tone.
3. Evoking: In the evoking step, the therapist helps the client find their own internal motivation to make positive changes and solve the problems they have just identified. This step is imperative in improving the patient’s readiness to change.
4. Planning: Finally, the planning stage kicks into action. It is at this time that the patient identifies and develops realistic and practical steps they can take to achieve their goals.

With the four steps of motivational interviewing, patients are able to gain responsibility and the ability to improve their current situations. When a patient is truly committed to changing for the better, the possibilities are endless. Every person holds within them the potential for greatness. Sometimes it is simply a matter of standing in our own way.

The saying goes that we are often our own worst enemies, which means that these negative thought patterns can become so normalized that we forget they are there. That sadly doesn’t mean they won’t still inform us of our behaviors and abilities. With a motivational interviewing therapy technique, patients can learn to become more aware of these instances so they can one day break away from them altogether.

Key Points of MI

Ultimately, there are many variations to this technique. That being said, there are still certain beliefs that fuel the motivational interviewing method.

They include:

• Directiveness of the counselor, allowing them to help the patient and move forward from ambivalence.
• A quiet but involved tone helps effectively elicit information from the patient.
• Direct persuasion is avoided.
• A motivation to change is elicited organically rather than forcefully imposed.
• The relationship between the therapist and patient resembles a partnership rather than just a directorial one.
• It is up to the patient to resolve their own ambivalence, not the counselor.

Through these foundations, we have seen patients accomplish incredible things. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes we just need a companion to help clear a brighter view of it.

The Benefits of Motivational Interviewing

Motivational interviewing focuses on developing and implementing real solutions for a wide array of problems. It is especially effective in addressing substance abuse and co-occurring disorders. Through this method, patients feel a greater sense of responsibility and accountability for their lives, giving them the strength to make positive changes.

Our residential mental health program in Boca helps people from all walks of life overcome mental illness, substance abuse, and co-occurring disorders. Motivational interviewing is one of our most effective treatment methods.

Many therapists use motivational interviewing techniques to help break down more overwhelming tasks into manageable steps. For example, getting sober can seem like an insurmountable feat. However, with the help of MI, and other therapeutic methods, patients can break down the smaller steps of the task to reach their goals.

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