Motivational Interviewing for Addiction FAQs

There are 10 CE/CME Credits available for Motivational Interviewing for Addiction. View the Learner Notification to see the boards and jurisdictions, learning objectives and speaker disclosures. 
Participants will also receive a certificate of completion.

This self-paced, 10-hour course combines expert teaching, filmed demonstrations, and interactive learning to help you apply Motivational Interviewing in real conversations about substance use. You’ll see how MI looks and sounds in practice, then reinforce your learning with animations, quizzes, and downloadable tools.

It also includes:

• Bonus content lets you explore key topics in more depth.

• A downloadable library of readings and exercises,

• 12 months of access to revisit the material and keep building your skills at your own pace.
  

This course is for professionals who work with people affected by substance use, including psychologists, therapists, counselors, social workers, addiction specialists, doctors, nurses, and peer workers. Whether you’re a generalist or a specialist, you’ll learn a practical, evidence-based way of engaging clients around change.

Motivational Interviewing complements the approaches you already use. It’s a way of being with people that strengthens your existing work rather than replacing it. You’ll see how Motivational Interviewing can make your work more effective, especially in conversations where clients feel uncertain, ambivalent, or discouraged about change.

If you’re already familiar with the core processes of Motivational interviewing, engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning, this course takes those ideas further. You’ll see how Motivational Interviewing fits within the stages of change and how motivation can shift from one session to the next.

The training shows you what to do as clients move through different levels of readiness, and how to respond when ambivalence, relapse, or uncertainty show up. It’s about using MI as a steady, flexible way of guiding people through the ups and downs of recovery.

Yes. Motivational Interviewing fits easily alongside other evidence-based approaches, such as CBT, contingency management, medication-assisted treatment, and relapse prevention.

The course shows how MI enhances the treatments you already use by strengthening engagement and motivation. It helps you work more effectively with clients who may also experience anxiety, depression, or other difficulties that overlap with substance use, creating a more integrated and person-centred approach to care.