Motivational Interviewing (MI) is an effective way of talking with people about change. MI strategies can be used during the SBIRT process to facilitate:

• Finding personal and compelling reasons to change
• Building readiness to change
• Making commitment to change

Ambivalence

People often already know there is some type of problem, but at the same time, they feel comfortable with what they are doing and don't want to be labeled with a diagnosis highlighting the problem.

Being stuck between the reasons to change and the reasons not to change is called ambivalence. MI is a person-centered counseling style for addressing the common problem of ambivalence about change.

Explore the following sections to learn how to identify and elicit change talk and how to use MI strategies: