This is the fourth message in a 4-part series on OARS skills! Click here to read the first three posts on Open-ended questions, Affirmations, and Reflections. This week we’re doing a deeper dive into the OARS tool of SUMMARIES!
In Motivational Interviewing, OARS skills are used to guide the conversation. We are metaphorically ‘rowing’ toward change with our OARS.
So what’s a summary in Motivational Interviewing?
First, let’s talk about flowers.
Imagine, walking through a field of flowers. The flowers are little representations of all the things a client is saying in the course of a conversation.
A summary is like selecting the most important flowers from that field, and handing it back to the client.
Isn’t that lovely? Who wouldn’t want to receive a bouquet?!
Seriously though. Summaries are technically a collection of reflections. They may include what a client has said, and, they may dive deeper to reflect on what the client means but has not yet said.
Summaries serve several purposes. They help clients feel listened to. They can help focus clients that are talkative or difficult to focus. They can link topics, or be utilized to guide a client deeper into one area of focus. We can use little or big summaries, sprinkling them throughout to help consolidate and guide the conversation.
And most importantly, summaries highlight talk about change and motivation. Click here to download my MI cheat sheet, which reviews Change Talk (and several methods for eliciting it!)
Motivational Interviewing Tip of the Week: Consider using summaries to consolidate and guide the conversation. What ‘flowers’ are you selecting when you provide a summary? Certainly, what you choose to reflect and summarize has a significant impact on the direction of the conversation. Let me know how it goes.
