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1. Describe how to combine person-centered and strategic components to improve clinical outcomes using MI in a positive and supportive way.
2. Model how the four processes and OARs skills of MI help reduce client ambivalence and empower change.
3. Explore ways to elicit, recognize and respond to “change talk” to improve treatment outcomes.
4. Develop clinical strategies for working effectively with clients who are resistant to change.
5. Explain ways that MI can enhance the effectiveness of other existing therapeutic approaches.
6. Choose how to effectively use MI to help alleviate symptoms of anxiety, depression and addictive behaviors.

Motivational Puzzles: Why People Don’t Do What’s Best for Themselves

• Redefine motivation as an interactive state
• Utilize three components of change
• Desire for and fear of change in therapy
• Ambivalence across the stages of change
• How ambivalence becomes resistance
• The spirit of MI

Core MI Processes to Cultivate Change

Engaging: The Relational Foundation

• Partnership – the core relationship
• ”Dancing” vs. “wrestling”
• Avoid the “expert” role
• Foster client autonomy
• The core skills of MI

Focusing: The Strategic Decision

• Match your agenda to the client’s goals & priorities
• Help clients develop a direction for change
• Guiding vs. directing or following
• Help clients find freedom
• How to prioritize multiple presenting issues & concerns

Evoking: Preparation for Change

• The key ingredient of MI
• Preparatory vs. mobilizing change talk
• Elicit importance, confidence & readiness for change
• Acceptance & empathy as tools for eliciting change talk
• Help clients align values and behavior
• Aid clients in leveraging strengths
• Build momentum toward change

Planning: Commitment to Change

• How and when to plan
• Information exchange to aid in plan development
• The “Dos” and “Don’ts” of giving advice

MI Tools for Anxiety: Inspire Clients to Engage in Previously Avoided Behaviors

• MI strategies to strengthen collaboration
• How to challenge “the way I’ve always done it” thinking
• Interventions to break familiar, anxiety-inducing patterns
• Combine MI with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

MI & Depression: Boost Your Clients’ Resilience, Self-Worth & Self-Efficacy

• Overcoming ambivalence in depression
• Friends & family: Help clients learn to filter well-intentioned advice
• Accept, acknowledge, empathize
• Help clients reframe therapeutic tasks
• MI & crisis intervention

Substance Use and Addictive Behaviors: MI Strategies to Catalyze Change and Reach Recovery Goals

• What makes life worth living?
• Avoid pushback: Emphasizing choice
• Substance use
• Other addictive/compulsive behaviors
• Using MI in conjunction with the 12 steps

Research Limitations and Potential Risks

Christopher C. Wagner, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist in Virginia and faculty member at Virginia Commonwealth University, with appointments in Rehabilitation Counseling, Psychology and Psychiatry. He began practicing MI in the 1990s and became a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) in 1998. From 2000-2008, he served in leadership positions in MINT, twice as chair of the network, and he has led three of their international training-of-trainers events. He was re-elected to the MINT board of directors in 2018.

Dr. Wagner has offered hundreds of MI trainings in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia/Oceania. In addition to focusing on clinical and theoretical advances in individual MI, he has also developed group applications of MI and is an author of the official Guilford series book on that topic, co-written with long-time colleague Karen Ingersoll. He has worked with individuals with a variety of health, mental health, addiction and employment challenges across outpatient, inpatient, residential and corrections settings. Dr. Wagner’s trainings are highly engaging and focused on helping participants incorporate MI skills and strategies into their current styles of practice.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Christopher Wagner has an employment relationship with Virginia Commonwealth University. He receives royalties as a published author. Christopher Wagner receives a speaking honorarium, recording royalties and book royalties. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Christopher Wagner is a member of the American Counseling Association, the American Group Psychotherapy Association, and the American Psychological Association.

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Listed below are the continuing education credit(s) currently available for this non-interactive self-study package. Please note, your state licensing board dictates whether self study is an acceptable form of continuing education. Please refer to your state rules and regulations.

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**Materials that are included in this course may include interventions and modalities that are beyond the authorized practice of mental health professionals. As a licensed professional, you are responsible for reviewing the scope of practice, including activities that are defined in law as beyond the boundaries of practice in accordance with and in compliance with your professions standards.

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners. For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Case managers
• Addiction Counselors
• Therapists
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Occupational Therapists
• Occupational Therapy Assistants
• Nurses
• Other Mental Health Professionals
• Probation/Parole Officers