Turning “What’s Wrong” into “What’s Strong”
Our ability to convey MI spirit derives at least in part from cultivating and holding the belief that people already have inside them the capacity and potential for change. One way that this belief manifests is through an ongoing “treasure hunt” for a person’s skills, strengths, capacities, and efforts. We can run aground when we search for “what’s wrong” in a situation or see the person as “ineffective.” With a shift in perspective, we can instead discover “what’s strong.” Consider this case example:
A group of detention officers in a juvenile justice center were perplexed about a 17-year-old young woman, Tanya, held there. They talked together in a team meeting with some outside practitioners about how she had, on three occasions, nearly completed her mandated month’s stay, only to engage in some small infraction that extended her time. “She’s going to be 18 on the day now set for her release. Can you believe it?” one said to another. “She seems smart, but how dumb can you be? She’s so impulsive and doesn’t understand the rules here; just no insight at all. One month is now going to be 10 months by the time she gets out of here. What a waste!”
A consulting mental health practitioner looked at this situation differently. From her perspective, working with exploited youth, Tanya’s actions made perfect sense. At the time of her arrest, Tanya had been in a department store with the man who was exploiting her. She took a big step away from him, grabbed a package of socks, waved it in front of the security camera, and then concealed the package in her coat. Being taken into custody and charged with shoplifting separated her from this man, and rather than be released to him, she extended her stay at the detention center so that she could be released as an adult on her 18th birthday. “In my opinion, she is clever, insightful, knowledgeable, and resourceful,” said the practitioner. “Adding time to her stay was the best way for her to maintain her current, relative safety until her release as an adult.”
If you have trouble seeing Tanya’s shoplifting from a strengths-based perspective, as the detention officers did, you are not alone. This deficit perspective is typical of how some of us were raised. Often, we begin to embrace and develop a strengths-based perspective for the first time when we start practicing MI. Try this exercise to see if you can get into the practice of turning “what’s wrong” into “what’s strong.”
Click here to download the Turning "What's Wrong" into "What's Strong" exercise from Motivational Interviewing for Mental Health Clinicians: A Toolkit for Skills Enhancement.
*This is an adapted excerpt from Motivational Interviewing for Mental Health Clinicians: A Toolkit for Skills Enhancement by Jennifer Frey, PhD, and Ali Hall, JD. Copyright © 2021, Jennifer Frey and Ali Hall. PESI Publishing.
- Examples of how to use MI to support people experiencing a variety of mental health issues
- Activities to help you more deeply explore the fundamental concepts, spirit, and tools of MI
- Sample conversation scripts that demonstrate the MI skills in practice
- Exercises to assess your progress and gain confidence in your skills
Most importantly, this toolkit offers a variety of flexible opportunities for you to actively practice the core skills of MI: Use them on your own, with a partner, with a team of colleagues, or within an MI learning community.
Ali Hall, JD, MINT Certified Trainer, is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT), a MINT Certified Trainer, and an independent consultant and trainer. Ali currently serves on the MINT Board of Directors, focusing on professional skill development for MI practitioners and trainers. Ali served as a Lead Trainer for the International MINT Training for New Trainers (TNT) in Warsaw (2019), New Orleans (2018) and Berlin (2015). Ali has designed and facilitated more than 2500 Motivational Interviewing (MI) workshops for criminal justice, wraparound services, chronic disease and diabetes self-management educators, health care practitioners, health coaches, telephonic health service providers, social services providers, behavioral health clinicians, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists, and provides training for trainers in evidence-based practices. Ali regularly presents at national and regional conferences for wraparound, criminal justice, health care providers, public health leaders and key organizational administrators.
Ali regularly provides MI coding and evaluation training, coding services and skill development coaching, and provides consultation to systems for establishing communities of practice and for effective, sustainable MI implementation. Ali is the co-developer of the Motivational Interviewing Competency Assessment (MICA), a coding and coaching tool for MI skill improvement.
Ali regularly designs and evaluates MI interventions for funded research, including large national and international studies. Ali’s work with agencies includes creating skills development curricula for staff and materials for those served. Ali also regularly provides workshops in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), applications of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and integration of MI and skill building evidence-based practices. Ali is the co-author of an MI skill-building manual and toolkit, to be released in late 2020 (published by PESI Behavioral Health Continuing Education). Ali also serves as a reviewer for the National Registry for Evidence-Based Practices and Programs (NREPP).
Ali spent her undergraduate years at Occidental College in Los Angeles and completed her graduate studies in organizational behavior at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, as well as her J.D. at the Cornell University School of Law. In her spare time, Ali is a cold-water marathon swimmer, raising funds for under-resourced kid’s charities.
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Ali Hall receives compensation as an independent consultant and trainer and has an employment relationship with University of California-Davis. She is a member of MINT and is the co-developer of Motivational Interviewing Competency Assessment. She receives royalties as a published author. Ali Hall receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Ali Hall serves on the board of directors of MINT.
