Motivational Interviewing’s accessible style and success with addictions treatment has made it a preferred approach in a range of helping professions. For therapists, MI has grown as a method used for not just addiction, but for the breadth of clinical scenarios in which resistance is a significant factor. When resistance goes unseen or unaddressed, clients feel misunderstood and may leave, given the option. Even if the client is mandated—such as in correctional facilities, court cases, or as in this video, within the walls of a middle school—we need a solid, connected therapeutic alliance to get anywhere. Here, Motivational Interviewing expert Sebastian Kaplan offers practical tools to help you move forward with adolescents and their families. You’ll watch Kaplan apply MI to four challenging sessions with adolescent clients, individually and with their parents, and you’ll learn strategies for applying these skills in your own practice. What’s more, you’ll learn how MI can help you resist the urge to “fix” your clients.
To start, Kaplan outlines the key principles of MI, known as the “MI Spirit,” and details each component alongside case vignettes. Covering the four MI processes, change talk and sustain talk, and “the righting reflex,” Kaplan illustrates the method’s collaborative, client-engaging nature. With 13-year-old Marley, her parents, and 13-year-old Katie, Kaplan demonstrates how to use MI to manage risk, communicate nonjudgment, deepen rapport, and draw out his clients’ innate strengths. This video also offers realistic commentary, in which Kaplan openly discusses his frustrations in session and then shows how to work with them to clinical benefit.
This video is an excellent resource for clinicians who want useful strategies for Motivational Interviewing, adolescent therapy, or family-based interventions.
By watching this video, you will:
• Get an overview of Motivational Interviewing (MI) and its application to adolescents.
• Learn how to bring parents into the clinical picture from an MI standpoint.
• Discover helpful tools for working with your own internal responses to a client.
Length of video: 2:56:39
English subtitles available
Group ISBN-10 #: 1-60124-531-9
Group ISBN-13 #: 978-1-60124-531-1
Sebastian Kaplan, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Section, at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. A former special education teacher, Dr. Kaplan, PhD currently focuses his clinical work on helping adolescents and their families overcome a variety of challenges to their growth and development. He has written and presented on the application of MI for pediatricians, mental health providers, and school personnel, and is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers.
CE credits: 3
Learning Objectives:
- Explain the value of Motivational Interviewing (MI) with adolescent clients
- Learn how to bring parents into the clinical picture from an MI standpoint.
- Analyze the impact of your own internal responses in your MI work
Bibliography available upon request
This course is offered for ASWB ACE credit for social workers. See complete list of CE approvals here
© 2017
Course Reviewed January 2023