Motivational Interviewing: Behavioral Health Staff

Audience: Behavioral Health Staff and MI-invested staff

Ambivalence about making changes is one of the most common experiences patients face within behavioral health settings. Helping patients resolve ambivalence and become more motivated to make positive behavior changes should be a central theme for almost every therapeutic setting. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is an evidence-based and strength-based conversation style that helps people resolve ambivalence and increase commitment for making a behavior change. Motivational interviewing increases the likelihood that people will own a change behavior and become more internally motivated. Participants in this cohort will have more experience in motivational interviewing and in supporting behavioral change, so we will be able to dive deeper, more quickly with this cohort. The application of this education will be more advanced than previous cohorts, include more advanced and behaviorally complex examples, as well as nuanced practice.