Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change

Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change . William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick (3rd edn), New York: Guilford Press, 2013. £39.99. 482 pp. ISBN: 978-1-60918-227-4. Description of and instruction in the art of motivational interviewing (MI) has made a significant contribution to the optimism of practitioners treating addiction disorders. This is the field in which MI arose 30 years ago. Its use has generalized into other health behaviour change interventions, and beyond into general decision making. For the addiction field, the essence of the contribution has been to give practitioners a set of skills to deal with that most challenging characteristic of people with addiction disorders, namely resistance to change. This third edition of Motivational Interviewing elaborates on the method described in the two previous editions (Miller and Rollnick, 1991, 2002), but without the assistance of contributing authors and with the change of the sub-title to ‘Helping People Change’. The previous sub-titles were: Volume 1 ‘Helping People Change Addictive Behaviour’ and Volume 2: ‘Preparing People for Change’. These subtle differences are important; the practice of MI appears to stop where the behaviour change plan begins. Hence, arguably the second volume's sub-title is the most apt. All are based on the once novel approach in …