Sometimes the hardest thing about moving your life forward isn’t what to do but working up the motivation to do it. Other times, you’re genuinely on the fence about whether you even want to take that step forward. When that’s the case, my job is to help you find the drive to make the changes you want to make and access your inner wisdom to choose the best path forward.

Motivational interviewing, or MI for short, is the psychological treatment that most directly helps you with this. Here, my role is to serve as a sounding board and guide to help you better understand why it’s important for you to make a life change and how you can make that shift. Using motivational interviewing strategies, either alone or with other evidence-based treatments, is linked with reduced use of harmful substances, increasing physical activity and making diet changes, and lower stress among many other positive changes.

In addition to using MI to target problems directly, I oftentimes find that I spend time early on in treatment incorporating motivational interviewing. This is a way for me to more deeply understand your reasons for coming to therapy and helping you set the stage for why you’re diving into the hard work of treatment.