Motivational Interviewing
The only change that really sticks is change that comes from the inside. Motivational Interviewing helps people find it.
Here is something that anyone who has ever tried to change — or tried to help someone else change — knows intuitively: being told what to do rarely works. Even when we know exactly what we should do, even when we agree with the advice, something in us pushes back. We dig in. We find reasons why it's not that simple, why now isn't the right time, why the person giving the advice doesn't quite understand our situation. This resistance isn't stubbornness or denial. It is a normal psychological response to feeling pushed. And Motivational Interviewing is built on a sophisticated understanding of that response.
Developed by psychologists William Miller and Stephen Rollnick, MI is a conversational approach that helps people explore and resolve ambivalence about change. The key insight is that ambivalence is not a problem to be overcome — it is a normal part of being human. Most of us both want to change and don't want to change, simultaneously. We want to drink less and we love how it feels to relax with a glass of wine. We want to exercise more and we find the sofa enormously compelling at 7pm.
MI doesn't try to eliminate that ambivalence. It helps people examine it honestly — to hear their own arguments for and against change, and to discover what they actually think and value underneath the competing impulses.
The goal of MI is for the person to talk themselves into change, because the only kind of change that sticks is change that comes from the inside.
Try this: The importance and confidence rulers
"On a scale of 0 to 10, how important is it to you to make this change?" Then: "How confident are you that you could do it, if you decided to?" These two numbers tell a story. Low importance? The work is about values and what really matters. Low confidence? The work is about past successes, strengths, and building a realistic plan. These rulers are simple, but the conversations they open are often profound.
Where MI is used
MI was originally developed in the context of addiction treatment, where it transformed outcomes by abandoning confrontational approaches in favour of genuine collaboration. It is now used widely in mental health, health behaviour change, parenting support, and any context where someone is working through a decision about change.
At its best, MI feels less like a technique and more like a particular quality of listening — one that communicates deep respect for a person's autonomy and intelligence, and creates a space in which they can think out loud without fear of judgement.
