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Motivational Interviewing: A Special Ethical Dilemma?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2009

Jacqueline M. J. Withers
Jacqueline M. J. Withers
Affiliation:
Dorset Healthcare NHS Trust
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Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the discussion of the ethical issues in motivational interventions which have recently been raised by Miller (1994). Motivational interviewing is typically used when a therapist perceives a need for behaviour change in someone who is ambivalent about such change. Motivational interviewing aims to evoke motivation by making salient the inconsistency of continuing with a problem behaviour and other longer term or wider life goals. Miller (1994) discussed what was manipulative about this approach and considered both a descriptive and evaluative component. The ethics of motivational interviewing are considered here, within the context of psychological therapy in a general sense, and questions whether the ethical issues relevant to motivational interviewing are different from other psychological interventions. A distinction between the goals and the means of obtaining therapeutic goals is suggested as useful.

Type
Research Article
Information
Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , October 1995 , pp. 335 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 1995

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References

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