SCA April 2011 Meeting

Motivational Interviewing for Mental Health Counselors

April 15, 2011
Christopher Dunn, PhD

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a patient (client)-centered and directive style of counseling to help people prepare for change by exploring and resolving their ambivalence about change. MI was developed by Bill Miller, a clinical psychologist at the University of New Mexico and Steve Rollnick, a clinical psychologist at the University of Wales. Their book, Motivational interviewing: Preparing people for change (Guilford), is now in its second edition. Over 200 randomized, controlled trials of MI have been conducted in domains such as substance abuse, exercise and diet, HIV risk reduction, smoking, and diabetes. Overall, MI seems to work as well--and in some cases better--as comparison treatments, but in less time.

Mental health clinicians often find themselves facing difficult behavior change in their clients. This presentation will give background information on MI, describe the method, and demonstrate key features of MI.

About the presenter: Dr. Dunn is an Associate Professor and counseling psychologist on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the University of Washington School of Medicine. He specializes in training medical practitioners to use a brief version of Motivational Interviewing to help their patients make healthy lifestyle behavior changes. These behaviors include, among others, smoking, drinking, medication adherence, exercise, and diet. He is currently funded by NIDA, NIH, and SAMHSA and is on three different studies to study the effects of brief behavior change interventions and how best to train practitioners to do this.

Dr. Dunn is a member of the International Association of Motivational Interviewing Trainers. In 2002 he trained new Motivational Interviewing trainers from around the world at the International Association of Motivational Interviewing Training the Trainers World Conference in Maui, Hawaii. In 2003, he published a book called Rapid Reference to Lifestyle Change: A guide for practitioners (Elsevier), describing motivational behavior change counseling for busy medical providers.

Resources:

A great web site, including research findings, numerous reading resources, trainings coming up, and training videos: www.motivationalinterview.org.