Eliciting Change Talk
Motivational Interviewing in Health CareIt just became a skill set that I had at my waist that I could use when I had the time or when I saw the opportunities, and the change talk guided me through it. It reminds me of, that fable about the sun and the wind having an argument about who was stronger. Did the wind said I'm the strongest, and the sun said no, I am. And the wind said, well, let's see. There's a guy walking down the street, and he has a coat on.
Let let's let's see who can get him to take the coat off. And the wind starts blowing and blowing and blowing and that's where I was. It was like I was trying to move him towards behavior change and I was trying everything. I even tried guilt, you know, anything. Gave them advice, told them what to do, nothing nothing worked. And then I learned motivational interviewing and it was like I was the sun coming out and I was engaging the patients, and the patients were taking the responsibility for taking care of their own health, and they were taking off those coats. And they were saying it feels good in the sun.