Motivational Interviewing & Pastoral Counseling

Despite the salience of spirituality in the lives of many clients, counselors are often hesitant to

explore spiritual issues in counseling, largely out of a valid concern of imposing values on the client. Motivational interviewing provides a framework within which a counselor can both assess spirituality and facilitate client exploration of spiritual issues without fear of imposing values.

Helping people change may be considered the primary goal not only of Christian psychology practice, but also of Christian ministries as well.Motivational interviewing is an increasingly empirically sup-ported approach to motivating and helping people change.

Represents an overview of the Motivational Interviewing model as it applies to military chaplaincy. MI is a counseling approach that accommodates person-driven change by addressing the barrier of ambivalence. The intended audience is chaplains who serve members of the United States Armed Forces. The intention is to provide chaplains with information on the Motivational Interviewing model so they can glean as much or as little as they feel would benefit their ministry

Motivational interviewing is an intervention technique that has demonstrated considerable success in drawing forth and strengthening intrinsic desire for change, leading to positive changes in problem behavior. It has been used especially in the treatment of addictions, including with youth.

Spiritual bypass is the avoidance of underlying emotional issues by focusing solely on spiritual beliefs, practices, and experiences. In this article, the authors provide background information on spiritual bypass and a rationale for adopting an MI approach to working with these clients. A case presentation illustrates 1 example of using MI with spiritual bypass.

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