Summary
A motivational interview has been conducted with a 37-year-old female individual who suffers from regular overeating in the evening and at night. The female client started her speech by describing how her habit seems to ruin her health and life because she gained weight, and she constantly feels stomach heaviness. Furthermore, the client feels depressed, and she is not satisfied with her behavior because she cannot stop eating from 7:00 p.m. to midnight. The interviewer used reflection and empathetic statements to support the client’s talk. When describing her current condition, the client became more and more upset, and finally, she was almost crying. In response to this emotion, the client-focused on stating that her problem is not really dramatic, and this habit is typical of many women of her age and status. At this stage, the client-focused on a sustain talk, and the counselor used reflection to address this speech.
The client’s sustained talk was very emotional, and she discussed different perspectives from which it is possible to view her problem as minor or insignificant. The counselor began to use techniques oriented toward supporting the client’s self-efficacy referring to her past experience and successes. The next step was asking a series of open-ended questions for the purpose of demonstrating how the change in evening routines can alter the client’s quality of life. At this stage, the client stated that she would think about possibilities for changing her daily routines, but she did not know how to do that effectively. The counselor provided the client with several examples for the purpose of discussing them by the female in order to choose or propose the most appropriate variant. The interview was ended with the client’s statement of the necessity to think about how to cope with stress at work and what evening routines to change to address her problem.
Reflection and Conclusion
During the interview conducted with the 37-year-old female individual, it was problematic to follow the principles of motivational interviewing and remain supportive without expressing any stimulation or pressure to change the discussed behavior. Furthermore, it was rather uncomfortable to interact with the female patient with the problem of overeating at night because she sustain talk was significantly longer than a change talk that was rather subtle. I am still unsure regarding the positive results of the conducted motivational interview.
I should state that the reviewed readings and other materials had prepared me for conducting the interview because I tried to use the studied techniques and strategies while communicating with the client. I could not succeed in conducting the interview without understanding how to react to sustain and change talks, cope with resistance in the context of motivational interviewing, and ask open-ended questions (Columbia, 2009; Yalom, 2018). I also effectively used reflective listening referring to the tips and examples mentioned in the literature (Rosengren, 2017; Yalom, 2018). Thus, the focus on readings was important to become prepared for practice.
When conducting the interview, I learned that the process of motivational interviewing can be extremely emotional depending on the client. Readings include information on how to interact with different clients focusing on their individual features and reactions, but that information was not enough to prepare me for communicating with the selected client (Rosengren, 2017; Yalom, 2018). The 37-year-old woman emotionally described her problem of overeating at night and seemed to be upset and rather confused. When her eyes became filled with tears, she got angry because of her own emotional reaction, and she raised her voice while speaking about her impossibility to cope with the habit. It was rather difficult to react to such a sustained talk, and I learned that I could cope with the situation while applying techniques for supporting the client’s self-efficacy.
The practice of conducting the motivational interview helped me develop skills in reflective listening and asking open-ended or evocative questions. The shift from a sustain talk to a change talk was one of the most challenging stages in the interview, and I understood that I could develop my skills in asking appropriate open-ended questions without imposing any pressure on a client only when practicing (Rosengren, 2017). Furthermore, I received an opportunity to train in reflecting on the client’s ideas that represent the obvious resistance to any change with the focus on required empathy.
I should state that I will use motivational interviewing in the future because it provides a counselor with opportunities to contribute to changing certain negative habits and behavioral patterns with a focus on a client’s intrinsic motivation. It is possible to note that the work of a counselor through a client’s inner motivation will provide more benefits and positive outcomes for an individual. From this perspective, a motivational interview allows a person to reconsider his or her behavior under a counselor’s supervision but without experiencing any pressure. As a result, there are more chances that an individual will focus on the change because of understanding its importance. Therefore, I will refer to motivational interviewing in cases of interacting with persons who need to change their certain behaviors because I believe that this approach will provide more positive outcomes than other strategies.
References
Columbia. (2009). Dr. William Miller, ‘Motivational Interviewing: Facilitating Change Across Boundaries’ [Video file]. Web.
Rosengren, D. B. (2017). Building motivational interviewing skills (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Publications.
Yalom, V. (2018). Cathy Cole on motivational interviewing. Web.