An Interview with Annie Fahy, MSW on Motivational Interviewing

Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. "Annie Fahy, MSW on Motivational Interviewing". In this edition of the Wise Counsel Podcast, Dr. Van Nuys interviews Annie Fahy, MSW on the topic of Motivational Interviewing. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a client centered set of psychotherapeutic strategies first developed by William Miller, Ph.D. (and then later developed by Miller and colleague Stephen Rollnick, Ph.D.). MI is applied by the interviewer to a client who is (usually) ambivalent about making a change to some maladaptive behavior they habitually engage in, such as drug use. Despite their client-centered approach, motivational interviewers are directive with clients. They use conversational therapy techniques as first developed by Rogers to advance a therapeutic agenda of helping to clarify and crystallize a client's motivation to change. They are not cohersive or insistent about it, however, in contrast to some addiction therapy approaches that stress confrontation. Motivational interviewing has been well studied, and has been repeatedly shown to help people reduce their problem drug or alcohol use. It fits well into the Harm Reduction psychotherapy framework for addictions as the therapy is okay with such partial improvement and does not demand full sobriety from clients.