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Motivational Interviewing in Boston
Our experts rely on the latest therapeutic and counseling techniques to help you overcome the challenges in your life. Whether that challenge is dealing with mental health disorders or addiction, we are here for you.
We can help by keeping you motivated to make a change. We do this through what’s known as motivational interviewing.
Motivational interviewing techniques were initially developed back in the 1980s to help support patients who were living with substance abuse disorders. Today, it can be used to help you improve your health and mental health and kick addiction.
Motivational interviewing is just one of the techniques that we use to help our clients maintain the motivation they need to process, explore, and make changes in their lives.
What is Motivational Interviewing Therapy?
Motivational interviewing therapy is a compassionate approach to therapy. We use it when addressing motivational issues in our clients. You may know you have an addiction and need to quit, but having the motivation to kick your substance addiction and make positive changes to your behavioral health (or even mental health) is another matter entirely.
That is where motivational interviewing comes into play. Our Massachusetts motivational interviewing techniques use the fundamental principles outlined by William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick; only we use it as a powerful tool alongside therapy and treatment for mental health treatment as much as we use it to help you with your substance addiction.
Benefits of Motivational Interviewing
Motivational interviewing has many benefits, so we use it alongside most treatments if you are experiencing difficulty staying motivated.
Increased Participation in Other Treatments
By expressing empathy and using techniques like reflective listening and open-ended questions, we can help you with your personal motivation and encourage you to participate more actively in other treatments. Being open to treatment takes a lot of courage, so if you struggle to open up in one-on-one or group sessions, we may use motivational interviewing therapy to help encourage positive change.
Overcome Personal Challenges
You must be fully aware of your reasons for committing to therapy. One of the main benefits of motivational interviewing (MI) is self-efficacy, or the belief that you can accomplish something. We work to help our clients build that self-confidence, as it’s key to succeeding in their program and developing the skills necessary to reach their goals.
Increase Self Awareness
Everyone participates in self-destructive behaviors, even if they aren’t overtly aware of it. By using motivational interviewing, we can help you link the risks and consequences to your behavior so you become more aware of the impact your substance use or mental health disorder has on your life and the lives of others. Sometimes, being fully aware of the damages can help our clients commit to therapy and treatment while also using the skills learned in therapy more effectively in their lives.
Build Self-Confidence
Your MI therapist in Massachusetts will also work to help build up your confidence in yourself during treatment. Low self-esteem can make behavioral health worse. It can cause or worsen symptoms of depression, make it easier to relapse into substance use, and more. We want to help stop that negative thinking so that you can lead a better quality of life where negative feelings aren’t sabotaging your efforts to improve.
Improves Trust Between Healthcare Professionals and Patients
We need our clients to stay present in their therapy and training and be willing to open up in conversation. If you are struggling to open up during the course of your program, then we may use motivational interviewing to help. The key principles of MI are excellent for fostering strong relationships between our clients and MI therapists, which can, in turn, help you throughout the course of your treatment program and training.
Motivational Interviewing Techniques
There are several techniques used during MI sessions by your course director:
- Reflective Listening
- Open Listening
- Open-ended questions
- Affirmations
- Summarizing
These techniques are used to help encourage patients to explore their behavior and encourage what’s known as change talk. This type of talk is simply reaching the stage where the patient is present and willing to discuss their behavior and the strategies they would like to try to change it.
Stages of Motivational Interviewing
Our experts understand that change cannot happen without trust. That's why there are several stages to the motivational interviewing process, during which different techniques are used.
Increase Awareness
During this stage, your therapist will help you connect the risks and consequences of your behavior. The goal here is to accept the risks of your behaviors, as change comes from within.
Brainstorming
Once you reach the stage where you accept the issues with your behaviors or accept the depth of your addiction, your therapist will then work on brainstorming options with you. The goal during this stage is to increase your confidence and motivation, as well as help you weigh the pros and cons of action vs inaction.
Goal Setting
Once you are ready to tackle your behavioral health or addiction, we will work on setting goals and building strategies for making healthy changes. By this point, you should have internal motivation and are now working on establishing the steps needed to reach your goals.
Maintenance
You can continue getting the support you need from our therapists as you enact the strategies you built in the previous step. We are here to help you navigate the challenges that come with beating addiction. Your therapists will be there to support you through those big changes, so you can build motivation and maintain it.
Relapse Support
Daily stressors to big triggers can cause you to relapse. We understand how hard it is to beat substance abuse and addiction, which is why we provide a non-judgmental and motivational supportive approach towards your relapses. We work together to help you understand why you relapsed so that you can continue the process of beating your addiction again (and again).
There is no shame in relapsing. Regardless of whether you experience a setback with your substance abuse or mental health, we are here for you. Trying again takes strength, which is why we are here to help support you every step of the way.
How Motivational Interviewing Works with Other Treatment Options
Motivational interviewing is a simple counseling method that can work with other talking or group therapy methods. While motivational interviewing emerged initially as an addiction treatment method, it’s used much more widely today.
Motivational interviewing can help you make healthy life changes, can help you practice and use the life skills needed to combat symptoms of depression, and so much more.
We offer every patient struggling with motivation in Massachusetts the option to start motivational interviewing in person. Together, we will work on helping you establish your reasons for starting therapy and use those to help you combat issues like substance use, depression, anxiety, or relationship struggles.
Get Started with Motivational Interviewing Today at Back Bay Mental Health
Our experts are here to help you build up MI skills that can help you make strides in overcoming substance use disorders, depression, bipolar disorders, personality disorders, and more. All that’s left is to get in touch with our specialists. Not only will we help you build up your intrinsic motivation, but we also offer psychiatry, psychology, and group therapy to help you, regardless of the mental health condition you struggle with.