Motivational Interviewing Documentation: Why, What, How?

Why might Motivational Interviewing in Documentation be important to you? 

For me, it is about providing ethical, accurate documentation of what is happening in the session. If I am utilizing Motivational Interviewing, I want to say I used it! It’s an evidence-based tool, and as a therapist that bills insurance for services provided, I know that I need to be documenting evidence-based interventions I am using in session!

There are myriad other reasons why supervisors or program managers or others may want to see Motivational Interviewing integrated into documentation. For some, funding is tied to utilizing and demonstrating the use of Motivational Interviewing in client encounters. 

What is MI in documentation?

Motivational Interviewing has a language.

There are words used to describe the spirit of motivational interviewing: partnership, acceptance, compassion, & empowerment. Other words like empathy, curiosity, evocation are often used to describe how we approach clients from the lens of Motivational Interviewing. 

The language of the OARS skills of Motivational Interviewing includes open ended questions, affirmations, reflections and summaries. 

There is language, too, around the four tasks of Motivational Interviewing: Engaging, Focusing, Evoking, & Planning.

AND, there is a language around other tools used in Motivational Interviewing: evoking change talk, scaling questions, Ask-Offer-Ask, Agenda Mapping, and more. 

How do we document our Motivational Interviewing from a session?

Well, we developed this handout (with the help of a lot of MINT members) to provide some guidance. Would you like the free handout of MI Phrases in Documentation? You will certainly have to adapt this to your role, services provided and agency guidelines, if applicable. And we do have two training options available.

This guide also invites us to consider the language we used to describe our clients readiness to change. We avoid judgmental words like “denial,” “resistant,” “non-compliant,” and instead shift our language to be more in line with acceptance and compassion, while doing our best to meet clients where they are and evoke the motivation that is inside of them toward what they want to change!

Motivational Interviewing Tip of the Week: Bringing the evidence-based practice of Motivational Interviewing into your documentation can even be a piece of your MI learning puzzle! When you enter a client session with the intention of using MI, then capture what you used through documentation, you are reinforcing your skills! Enjoy our guide to Motivational Interviewing phrases for documentation, and make it yours!