MI is a collaborative approach to health care consultation. It has been described as a guiding rather than a leading style of relating to our patients or clients. The MI style manifests itself in the practitioner’s attitude.

There are three components to the attitude or “spirit” manifested by the MI practitioner: evocation, autonomy support, and collaboration.

1. Evocation acknowledges that effective health behavior change starts with the patient/client and not with the practitioner. Questions and concerns about life-style changes are most sustainable when patients voice them independently. Remember, people are most persuaded to change when they articulate the ideas themselves.

2. Autonomy Support means that when patients choose their own way of changing (or not), they are more likely to persist in that change. In MI we avoid coercive or overly persuasive methods. The reasons for making behavioral changes must be personally relevant to our patients/clients.

3. Collaboration, the third component, reinforces this spirit by emphasizing the distribution of power in the patient-practitioner relationship. The idea is that we assume patients/clients are the experts in how they will change, so we acknowledge a “dual expertise” and a 50-50 power sharing.

Some practitioners new to MI may be concerned that this approach doesn’t allow them to direct the conversation and thus will hamper their ability to teach patients/clients what they need to learn. Quite the opposite is true. The MI approach makes it much more likely that patients/clients will be interested in listening to our health care advice. MI empowers patients/clients and therefore allows them to be more receptive partners to change.