{"id":17762,"date":"2025-11-11T14:56:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T19:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/2015\/12\/evoking-strengthening-motivation-for-change\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T09:15:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T14:15:22","slug":"strengthening-motivation-for-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/2025\/11\/strengthening-motivation-for-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Strengthening Motivation for Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

We continue this week with the third \u201cprocess\u201d of Motivational Interviewing, Evoking<\/strong>. In our last post, we talked about the client strengthening their motivation for change. This change for the individual could be related to desire, ability, reasons, or need<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The practice for the counselor is to not only recognize the \u201cchange talk\u201d but also to know how to respond to it when it occurs. If this is done skillfully, you will often hear the counselor respond with a R<\/strong>eflection followed by an O<\/strong>pen-ended question (part of the communication skills of OARS<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Examples of ways to respond to \u201cchange talk\u201d are below:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What we, as practitioners, may also hear is \u201csustain talk\u201d or language from the client indicating that they want to maintain the \u201cstatus quo\u201d and are less interested and\/or confident in changing their behavior.<\/p>\n

Here are examples of ways to respond to \u201csustain talk\u201d:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The skill of listening for \u201cchange talk\u201d and \u201csustain talk\u201d can be challenging, but practicing can lead the client in the direction of strengthening their motivation, and eventually to \u201creal\u201d and \u201csustainable\u201d change.<\/p>\n

Charts provided by Cathy Cole Training, Inc.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For more information about motivational interviewing resources, contact Eunice Akinyi Okumu, by phone (919) 843-2532, or by email, eunice_okumu@med.unc.edu<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We continue this week with the third \u201cprocess\u201d of Motivational Interviewing, Evoking. In our last post, we talked about the client strengthening their motivation for change. This change for the individual could be related to desire, ability, reasons, or need. The practice for the counselor is to not only recognize the \u201cchange talk\u201d but also … 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":[384,329,310],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-additional-strategies-motivation-for-change","category-mi-process-evoking","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":"Conversations About Change: Additional Strategies and Motivation for Change","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/category\/motivational-interviewing-blog\/mi-process-evoking\/additional-strategies-motivation-for-change\/"},{"name":"MI Process: Evoking","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/category\/motivational-interviewing-blog\/mi-process-evoking\/"},{"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\/17762","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=17762"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19966,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17762\/revisions\/19966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}