Motivational Interviewing by William R. Miller

This involves letting go of the idea and burden that you have to (or can) make people change. On the other hand, directly acknowledging a person’s freedom of choice typically diminishes defensiveness and can facilitate change. Telling someone that “You can’t,” and more generally trying to constrain someone’s choices typically evokes psychological reactance, the desire to reassert one’s freedom. In MI, the counselor’s prime directive is to draw out a client’s intrinsic motivations for change, rather than confronting them with extrinsic motivations or taking an authoritative tone: It is designed to strengthen personal motivation for and commitment to a specific goal by eliciting and exploring the person’s own reasons for change within an atmosphere of acceptance and compassion. Motivational interviewing is a collaborative, goal-oriented style of communication with particular attention to the language of change. The explicit purpose of MI is to help clients change their lives in ways that will minimize harm and promote growth and flourishing: The approach borrows the conceptual foundations of Rogerian client-centered therapy, but also departs from it by being considerably more goal-oriented. They have continued to evolve its theory and practice over the last several decades MI is now used in a variety of contexts and has been fruitfully integrated with other therapeutic methods. Miller and Rollnick originally invented motivational interviewing (MI) in the 1980s as a talk therapy treatment for alcohol addiction.

The book is a terrific resource for professionals and laypeople interested in the language of change and dynamics of personal development.

Miller and Stephen Rollnick’s Motivational Interviewing as a reliable and longstanding practice that would be useful for an aspiring counselor to explore.

Motivational Interviewing by William R. Miller