As a dietitian, I was taught to just TEACH THE DIET, that being my main job. After 20 years of practice in many different settings, I was frustrated and tired!

I needed to either find a different, better way of doing things, or find a new career.

During my doctoral course work in the early 1990s I took a wonderful course in Health Behavior, taught by Dr. Dan Merrigan at the Boston University School of Public Health. Dan really “lit a fire” under me by teaching the Stages of Change (SOC), a health behavior theory developed by Prochaska and colleagues at the University of Rhode Island.

The Stages of Change theory presents the idea that people pass through predictable STAGES as they prepare to change. So, people who are not considering changing are in Precontemplation, while those beginning to think about making a change in their behavior are in Contemplation. Once the decision to change has been made, but the actual change has not yet happened, the person is in Preparation. Once the person moves through Preparation, and into Action, they are actually READY TO CHANGE. This explained why the interventions I had been offering for my entire career didn’t work most of the time. It felt like someone turned on the light in a dark room!

In 2000, I learned about Motivational Interviewing (MI), and set about learning this counseling technique. Another lite in a dark room!

MI was developed by Miller and Rollnick (2002), and “grew up” around the same time as the SOC. MI is a client centered, directive approach to talking with people about changing their behavior about their health. Please read the text to the right of this post for more description. One of the beautiful things about MI is that it helps people to GET READY TO CHANGE.

I now find that I am less tired and irritable when working with my clients, students, and even my family. Let us know about your experience with MI.