[SOLVED] Value of Motivational Interviewing
To understand the value of Motivational Interviewing, you might benefit from considering a situation that is difficult to change. To explore this issue, I would like for you to consider yourself or a client who wanted to change, even needed to change but was having difficulty doing it. We might call this being stuck in dichotomy or ambivalence. The forces pushing for change have equal and opposite forces maintaining the situation. It might be a relationship that needs to change or eating habits or smoking illegal substances or time on the internet. It could be anything; in this course we will come back to the substance issue, but the principle is larger. Learning how to be more effective and less frustrated with people in these dilemmas is another level of counseling skills that you can develop. The specific skills that we are focusing on come from Motivational Interviewing. You already have many of the requisite skills, but the ones you may not have could be significant and will require work to master. To make it interesting (and more complicated) let’s personalize the process where you can look at it from both sides: as a counselor helping someone and as the human struggling with change. In addition to writing up a specific client who is stuck, I would like for you to have a personal growth issue that you would like to change. This week you will present your client or your issue (in as much detail as you are comfortable). Please push your self to identify the less familiar ideas and push them to the forefront of your work. You know you have hit this wall before–we all have–here is an opportunity to gain some new responses and increase your effectiveness. Now write up with either yourself or the other person and describe the journey you/they have taken. Use what you know about MI to describe where in the change process you have gone; use MI’s terminology. What questions have been raised that produced productive explorations? Give examples. Did you give an assessment, suggest some educational materials, or have then do any experiments? How did that go? What would be your plan for the future? What is your reaction to the Motivational Interviewing process and its application to your counseling?
