Motivational Interviewing Tools

Principles of motivational interviewing

Miller and Rollnick identified five general principles of motivational interviewing. They are:

• express empathy

• develop/explore discrepancy

• avoid argumentation

• roll with resistance (verbal judo)

• support self efficacy.

It is important to remember that motivational interviewing is based on the psychological law: 'I learn what I believe as I hear myself speak'.

Reflective exercise

Consider what this statement means and why might it be relevant to counsellors.

Bill Saunders suggests that in relation to motivational interviewing this law may have the following implications.

• The best way for a counsellor to persuade a client that they have a problem is to develop an interaction in which the client states, 'my problem is a behaviour because...'

• The art of motivational interviewing is to encourage the client to talk freely about the problem as he/she sees it so he/she makes statements like, 'this really is a problem, something must be done', etc.

• The role of the counsellor is to facilitate personal exploration of the problems, so that the client confronts themselves.

• The client needs to convince himself/herself and the counsellor that he/she has a problem, not the other way around.