Motivational Interviewing Training

The MI training focuses on supporting people to make important changes in their lives, with a specific emphasis on substance use. It is suitable for anyone in a support role.

Dr Charlotte Hilton, a psychologist with expertise in behaviour change and a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT), will deliver this two-day training programme.

The training provides a good understanding of motivational interviewing (MI) and how to apply it. It also explores why MI is particularly helpful in assisting people through change and growth. Additionally, it offers insights into blending MI with other approaches such as trauma-informed therapy, CBT, and solution-focused therapy.

(MI is practised with an underlying spirit or way of being with people)

• Partnership. MI is a collaborative process. The MI practitioner is an expert in helping people change; people are the experts of their own lives.

• Evocation. People have within themselves the resources and skills needed for change. MI draws out the person’s priorities, values, and wisdom to explore reasons for change and support success.

• Acceptance. The MI practitioner takes a nonjudgmental stance, seeks to understand the person’s perspectives and experiences, expresses empathy, highlights strengths, and respects a person’s right to make informed choices about changing or not changing.

• Compassion. The MI practitioner actively promotes and prioritizes clients’ welfare and well-being selflessly.

• MI has core skills of OARS, attending to the language of change and the artful exchange of information:

• Open questions draw out and explore the person’s experiences, perspectives, and ideas. Evocative questions guide the client to reflect on how change may be meaningful or possible. Information is often offered within a structure of open questions (Elicit-Provide-Elicit) that first explore what the person already knows, then seek permission to offer what the practitioner knows and then explore the person’s response.

• Affirmation of strengths, efforts, and past successes helps to build the person’s hope and confidence in their ability to change.

• Reflections are based on careful listening and trying to understand what the person is saying, by repeating, rephrasing or offering a deeper guess about what the person is trying to communicate. This is a foundational skill of MI and how we express empathy.

• Summarizing ensures shared understanding and reinforces key points made by the client.

Host or Publisher Change Grow Live Norfolk