Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a directive client-centred counselling style for eliciting behaviour change by helping clients to explore and resolve ambivalence (Rollnick, William and Miller, 1995).

Motivational Interviewing is a relatively new cognitive-behavioural therapy, which uses simple, transparent and supportive discussion with the aim of helping the client to:

1. understand his or her thought processes related to the problem
2. identify and measure the emotional reactions to the problem
3. identify how thoughts and feelings interact to produce the patterns of behaviour
4. challenge his or her thought patterns and implement alternative behaviours

(Bundy, 2004: p43)

MI is not a stand alone intervention, as it focuses only on preparing the person for behaviour change. It does not provide practical solutions towards change; therefore it should be used together with other therapies such as cognitive or behaviour therapy.

The full version of this article is available from www.aipc.net.au/articles.

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