Solution, Motivation and Inspiration: A Brief Understanding of Motivational Interviewing (MI)

Motivational Interviewing (Miller & Rollnick, 2009) is: “a collaborative, person-centred form of guiding to elicit and strengthen motivation for change.”  MI, is an empathic therapeutic approach that is considered to be both client-centred and directive. It is strengths-based approach which elicits peoples’ motivation to change, unlike other approaches that can increase people’s resistance to change. It was originally developed for use in specialised drug and alcohol treatment. In these contexts the norm was that the client received multiple MI sessions of significant duration. In the thirty years since its origin MI and various adaptions of it have been applied in health areas including smoking cessation, HIV prevention, diet and exercise, treatment adherence and gambling. This article is an attempt to collaborate the principles, skills and strategies of motivational interviewing.