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When Bill Miller and Stephen Rollnick began teaching MI back in the 1980s, they talk about how much focus was placed on the techniques and \u201chow to do\u201d MI and less about the underlying \u201cspirit\u201d of MI. They speak about how they felt like they were teaching the words to the practitioners but not the music. So, the \u201cmusic\u201d of MI, or the \u201cspirit\u201d of MI involves four key elements: partnership, acceptance, compassion, and evocation. And as mentioned above, for each of these elements there is both an experiential and behavioral component. Below are the four elements explained in greater detail:<\/p>\n
Partnership:<\/strong><\/p>\n In a therapeutic relationship using MI, it is important to remind ourselves that the client is the expert of their own experience and that our intention is to honor their experiences, perspectives, and choices\u2026even if they may be different from our own. In order for change to occur and for change to be sustainable, we know that the client must do the \u201cheavy lifting\u201d and our role is to provide the guidance and support through this process. It is a collaboration between two individuals who have a lot to offer each other. An example used by Miller and Rollnick is that the conversation is like sitting together on a sofa and the client is sharing with you their life photo album. The practitioner asks questions from time to time, but mostly, the practitioner listens to the client\u2019s unfolding, attempting to understand and see the world through their eyes rather than influencing them with their personal values and agenda.<\/p>\n Acceptance:<\/strong><\/p>\n Motivational Interviewing has a deep connection to the work of Carl Rogers, and especially as it relates to the profound acceptance of the client\u2026again, not that the practitioner always agrees or approves of<\/p>\n the client\u2019s actions but that the practitioner always honors the inherent worth and potential of every human being encountered. There are four aspects of acceptance:<\/p>\n 1) Absolute Worth<\/p>\n a. Rogers termed the phrase \u201cunconditional positive regard\u201d against an attitude of judgment and placing conditions on worth\u2026since when one feels they are unacceptable, their ability to change is diminished\u2026but if one feels accepted just as they are, they are free to change.<\/p>\n 2) Accurate Empathy<\/p>\n a. Being as genuine as possible as a practitioner and taking an active interest in attempting to understand the client\u2019s internal perspective on experience is Accurate Empathy<\/strong>. It is \u201cto sense the client\u2019s inner world of private personal meanings as if it were your own, but without ever losing the \u2018as if\u2019 quality\u201d (Rogers, 1989).<\/p>\n 3) Autonomy Support<\/p>\n a. It is unlikely for a client to change their behavior if they are told what to do and how to it\u2026or for a practitioner to believe they are able to make people change. There is much more likelihood for change to occur if the practitioner acknowledges a person\u2019s freedom to choose and a belief that each human being has what is needed to do so.<\/p>\n 4) Affirmation<\/p>\n a. This is being intentional about acknowledging the client\u2019s strengths and efforts and not about what is \u201cwrong\u201d with someone and telling them how things can be fixed. An affirmation is not praise like \u201cgreat job\u201d but rather a genuine acknowledgment of how the client \u201cpersevered\u201d in a situation or \u201cprioritized\u201d something important to them. Affirmations are more about the person than the behavior.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Compassion:<\/strong><\/p>\n Since our primary goal in MI is to be of service to someone considering behavior change, the cultivation of compassion, or the commitment to pursue the welfare and best interests of another, is essential. A practitioner does not need to suffer with a client in order to act with compassion, as it is more about actively promoting the other\u2019s welfare and giving priority to their needs. Interestingly, the promotion of others\u2019 welfare is often an important motivation for many of us in the helping professions.<\/p>\n Evocation:<\/strong><\/p>\n When individual change is being considered in many settings, there is often a focus on deficits\u2026and what the person is lacking that needs to be installed. And in a therapeutic setting, the practitioner can often be seen as the person who can assess what is missing and provide it to the client, whether it is knowledge, insight, or skills. There is a very different premise in MI; a belief that each individual already has what they need within them, and that our role, as practitioners, is to evoke it, or bring it out. An example of this is thinking about ambivalence and the likely scenario that each individual often has motivations to change and motivations to continue maintaining a particular behavior. Therefore, as a practitioner, we attempt to evoke and strengthen these motivations to change that already exist.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For more information about Motivational Interviewing resources, contact Eunice Akinyi Okumu, by phone (919) 843-2532, or by<\/i> email, eunice_okumu@med.unc.edu<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The definition below highlights the importance of not only the techniques and processes of MI but also the atmosphere for a supportive and productive session. Motivational Interviewing is a person-centered counseling style for addressing the common problem of ambivalence about change. It is designed to strengthen an individual\u2019s motivation for and movement toward a specific … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103351,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[369,334,310],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mi-components","category-mi-components-questions","category-motivational-interviewing-blog","odd"],"acf":[],"featured_image":false,"featured_image_medium":false,"featured_image_medium_large":false,"featured_image_large":false,"featured_image_thumbnail":false,"featured_image_alt":false,"category_details":[{"name":"MI Components","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/category\/motivational-interviewing-blog\/mi-components-questions\/mi-components\/"},{"name":"MI Components and Questions","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/category\/motivational-interviewing-blog\/mi-components-questions\/"},{"name":"Motivational Interviewing Blog","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/category\/motivational-interviewing-blog\/"}],"tag_details":[],"_links_to":[],"_links_to_target":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103351"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17740"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19918,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17740\/revisions\/19918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1380\/2025\/09\/tumblr_inline_oj242sBkrD1t6dtej_540.jpg\")
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