Abstract
Change is broader than behavior, and often starts before a goal or plan is conceived, with clients first opening up to the vague possibility of betterness. Collaboration is a hallmark of MI spirit, and therapeutic direction can be developed collaboratively in MI through the process of evokingclient values, desires, needs, hopes, and goals. Counselors may initially aspire to help clients find better lives, and narrow the focus to discrete change goals when specific client behaviors are collaboratively identified as obstacles to achieving a better life, or when absence of behaviors is identified as inhibiting progress toward it
Highlights
Various descriptions of motivational interviewing suggest that a tension exists between the client-centered and directional aspects of the approach
That tension is sometimes duplicated in discussions about these two aspects, with those who are more focused on the client-centered aspect being concerned about MI becoming manipulative if it is too directive and those focused on the directional aspect being concerned about MI becoming ineffective if it is too clientcentered
A version of this paper was presented in the symposium MI in Equipoise: Oxymoron or New Frontier?, Second International Conference on Motivational Interviewing (ICMI), Stockholm, Sweden, June, 2010
Summary
Various descriptions of motivational interviewing suggest that a tension exists between the client-centered and directional aspects of the approach.
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