Intermediate Motivational Interviewing: Culture, Context & Skillful Practice

Change never happens outside of context.

Our values, relationships, language, culture, communities, histories, and lived experiences all shape what change means — and whether a particular change even feels desirable or possible.

Is This Training Right for Me?

This intermediate training is designed for helping professionals who already have a basic foundation in Motivational Interviewing and are ready for more focused skill development and practice.

You’ll get the most from this training if you are already familiar with:

• MI Spirit

• OARS

• Change talk and sustain talk

• The difference between directing, guiding, and following

You do not need to consider yourself an advanced MI practitioner.

If these concepts are new to you — or you want a stronger foundation before moving into intermediate practice — begin with Introduction to Motivational Interviewing: Foundations, Skills & Ethical Practice.

What to Expect

This 6-hour interactive intermediate training is designed to help participants move beyond basic MI knowledge toward more intentional and skillful practice.

Participants will deepen their use of reflections, evoking, change talk, sustain talk, discrepancy, responding to discord, and other core MI strategies while examining how culture, language, identity, relationships, and social context shape motivation and behavior change.

We’ll explore how culture influences values, communication, family roles, decision-making, identity, expectations, autonomy, and ideas about change.

Participants will practice listening for culturally situated meaning, recognizing when clinician assumptions enter the conversation, and using MI skills without imposing an individualistic or clinician-defined vision of what change should look like.

Through clinical vignettes, experiential exercises, guided reflection, focused practice, and real-play, participants will strengthen their ability to work with complex ambivalence while attending to the cultural worlds clients inhabit.

Participants Will Leave With

• Greater confidence moving from foundational MI knowledge into intentional clinical practice

• Practice recognizing and responding strategically to change talk and sustain talk

• Stronger skills in complex reflection and developing discrepancy

• Greater skill responding to discord while protecting the working relationship

• Greater awareness of how culture, language, family, identity, and social context shape motivation

• Strategies for identifying and reducing the influence of clinician assumptions

• Practical ways to explore client values without defining those values for them

• Greater skill adapting MI conversations across cultural differences

• Opportunities for focused MI practice, real-play, reflection, and feedback

Who Should Attend?

This training is designed for helping professionals who want to deepen both their Motivational Interviewing skillfulness and cultural responsiveness.

Ideal for:

• Clinical social workers

• Professional counselors

• Marriage and family therapists

• Psychologists

• Substance use counselors

• Behavioral health professionals

• Case managers

• Clinical supervisors

• Other helping professionals who regularly engage people in conversations about change

Training Format

This training is delivered live online in two 3-hour sessions. Attendance at both sessions is required to receive the full 6 CE hours.

Registered participants will receive the Zoom link and participant materials approximately one week before the first session.