essentials

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Building Motivational Interviewing Skills is a remarkable achievement: author and founding MINT member David Rosengren has translated the interactive process of clinical training into an independent study format.

Each chapter includes an opening clinical vignette that provides context. Then, the author provides a brief and readable introduction to the concepts underlying the skill or strategy under discussion, followed by a quiz and annotated transcripts illustrating the skill in practice. The explanatory and illustrative material is followed by a set of practice opportunities, most of which can be done individually and some of which involve a training partner. Concepts, skills, and strategies are presented in roughly the same order as in a trainer-led workshop.

Novice to advanced MI practitioners in almost any clinical setting can benefit from the diverse selection of practice exercises. This excellent workbook can serve as an individual introduction to MI, a resource for translating workshop training into practice, or a guide for an MI learning group.

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The definitive clearinghouse for MI-related information. Includes a comprehensive, well-maintained bibliography of research and clinical publications.

Motivational Interviewing Page

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This is a remarkably useful edited text. Published in 2007, it describes novel MI applications in the treatment of anxiety, depression, PTSD, suicidal behavior, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, gambling addictions, schizophrenia, and dual diagnoses. Also addressed are MI approaches in the criminal justice system. Each chapter provides a concise overview of the disorder or population under discussion; describes how MI has been integrated with standard treatment approaches; illustrates the nuts and bolts of intervention, using vivid clinical examples; and reviews the empirical evidence base. The relevance and practicality of the case examples and discussion make it obvious that the authors of each chapter have actual clinical experience with the population about which they are writing.

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The authors present a streamlined model of MI application for health care providers who are not counselors by training. What I love about this one is that it anticipates and responds to just about every question or concern I have heard when working with folks in medical settings. You can tell the authors have done their homework. This 2007 text provides a more flexible, general model for health behavior consultation than the earlier “Health Behavior Change” book.

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If change were easy, a lot of us (psychologists, counselors, health care providers) would be out of work. Still, that doesn’t stop us from complaining about those clients and patients who just won’t do what we think is in their best interest. Motivational Interviewing, a “client-centered, directive method for enhancing intrinsic motivation,” was developed specifically to help faciliate change in “resistant” populations and has been embraced by addictions treatment and general health care professionals alike. The entirely re-written, highly readable, second edition of Motivational Interviewing updates readers on the state of the art and science of MI, and provides a practical guide for helping people to make all kinds of behavior changes.
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