The Power of Effective Questions
Asking is a core skill in Motivational Interviewing. And the heart of it is a particular kind of question. It's not just how do you feel. It's a question that focuses on change. So for example, what might really help you to get on top of this problem? Can you see that's got like a forward-looking quality? It's the kind of question a guide might ask.
And they sit at the heart of Motivational Interviewing. Now there's some fundamentals, whether it's motivational interviewing or not, One thoughtful question is gonna be worth more than many mouthfuls of busy talk and lots of questions. Keep them succinct. Keep them free of of needless words, simple, succinct, forward-looking. And as you probably noticed, they're open rather than closed. And by that, I don't mean that close questions aren't useful sometimes, but in motivational interviewing, an open question gives the opportunity for the person to say what they think and feel and critically about change. These forward-looking questions, for example, Why might you make that change, or how might you go about it?
The critical thing about them is that the response to it is actually change talk. The patient will be saying why or how they might change. And that's really at the heart of motivational interviewing, giving someone the space to save for themselves how they might change is much more valuable and powerful than you telling them how they might do it and questions sit at the heart of this process.