{"id":17764,"date":"2025-11-11T15:05:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/2015\/07\/mi-evoking\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T21:19:12","slug":"evoking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/2025\/11\/evoking\/","title":{"rendered":"Evoking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We continue our series on the 4 processes of Motivational Interviewing\u2026 Engaging, Focusing, Evoking, and Planning. This month, we will focus on the third process, <strong><i>Evoking<\/i><\/strong>. We have talked about creating a therapeutic relationship (Engaging) and establishing a clear focus for the session (Focusing) and now we move to Evoking, and strengthening, motivation for change.<\/p>\n<p>Here, the counselor listens for the client expressing motivation to change behavior\u2026this motivation or interest in changing could be related to:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><strong>Desire<\/strong>: \u201cI would like to lose some weight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><strong>Ability<\/strong>: \u00a0\u201cI would be able to take my medications each morning with breakfast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><strong>Reasons<\/strong>: \u201cI would have more energy if I exercised.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><strong>Need<\/strong>: \u201cI need to make better choices because I can\u2019t keep living this way\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The practice for the counselor is not only to hear and recognize the \u201cchange talk\u201d but, rather, to know how to respond to it when it occurs. If this is done skillfully, the counselor will be able to strengthen the motivation for change which can lead to \u201creal\u201d change. In practicing Evoking, keep in mind that fear may be present for a client who is considering a behavior change.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1380\/2025\/09\/tumblr_inline_nr65jvIEaQ1t6dtej_540.jpg\" width=\"428\" height=\"249\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Our next post will provide examples of how to respond to \u201cchange talk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>For more information about Motivational Interviewing resources, contact Eunice Akinyi Okumu, by phone (919) 843-2532, or by email, <a href=\"mailto:eunice_okumu@med.unc.edu\">eunice_okumu@med.unc.edu<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We continue our series on the 4 processes of Motivational Interviewing\u2026 Engaging, Focusing, Evoking, and Planning. This month, we will focus on the third process, Evoking. We have talked about creating a therapeutic relationship (Engaging) and establishing a clear focus for the session (Focusing) and now we move to Evoking, and strengthening, motivation for change. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/2025\/11\/evoking\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Evoking\">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":[358,329,310],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evoking-evoking","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":"Evoking","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/category\/motivational-interviewing-blog\/mi-process-evoking\/evoking-evoking\/"},{"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\/17764","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=17764"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20036,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17764\/revisions\/20036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/cfar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}