Cross-Training with Motivational Interviewing
You know how athletes need to cross-train when their bodies are doing a repetitive motion over and over, so they don’t get injured? That’s how learning Motivational Interviewing has felt for me. In EFT, a lot of our reflections and summaries are leading clients towards their attachment threads. We help someone go from, “I think she’s childish” to “it scares me when it looks like I don’t have you as my partner”. I trained my brain to lead clients towards their attachment, and along the way I developed a tendonitis from repeated use of this skill. The tendonitis is that I started to believe that I was the one who was responsible for saving their marriage, and regardless of their reality, I was the one who had to connect them to an attachment feeling.
I noticed my anxiety and burn out was increasing, because I felt so much pressure and responsibility for all of the clients. And there were times where I genuinely questioned if I was missing a client’s reality - was I leading them to something that wasn’t actually true or authentic for them?
I also felt I needed more skill with how to work with ambivalent clients. I have had many clients over the years who feel quite ambivalent about working on their sexual relationship, staying in a relationship, or looking at their relationship with alcohol. I felt I had some tools, but not nearly enough, as I grew more and more frustrated with their ambivalence.
I’ve heard about Motivational Interviewing for a long time, but I was so busy with other trainings and learning EFT that I had back-burnered it until recently. I received mini newsletters from a training group, Bolter Consulting, which I really enjoyed, but the timing hadn’t come together to take the beginners course with them until a few months ago.
As I started, I immediately felt pressure lift off my shoulders. MI does a great job of helping the therapist respect the client’s autonomy. I feel like the MI interventions and ethos help me have better boundaries - I am back in the seat of a therapist and not leading/guiding/pushing the clients. Since I’m creating fewer alliance ruptures by my over-leading, I feel like my clients feel more heard and relaxed. There’s less micro resistance, and I don’t feel like a weird attachment puppet master anymore.
I’m also learning some really helpful skills of how to work with ambivalence. Even more so I’m identifying ambivalence in client’s in more subtle ways. Ambivalence is completely normal, but it also can be completely frustrating when you’re working with couples. In couples work, ambivalence can often sound like, “I want you to help us have a better marriage, but I don’t want to change how I am with (fill in the blank). Why aren’t you helping us communicate better? Why is there still conflict?”
In the past, I would deal with this ambivalence by “yeah, but-ing” my clients. If a client said, “I don’t know that I even want to talk about sex,” I would respond with something that sounded soothing, but in my head I would be thinking - yeah, but you’ve got to talk about it this relationship won’t get better, so let’s try. Now I stop and explore with the client. “You’re not sure this topic is right for you to explore right now, or comfortable to talk about in couples therapy.” I’m more accepting that they may choose not to ever talk about it, and my job is to help them explore both sides of their decision but not to convince them.
I personally really like how Bolter Consulting has set up their training, and I think it’s shockingly affordable compared to a lot of trainings that give you this many CEUs. I love that they have live calls where you can practice skills and ask questions each week. If the training isn’t right for you at this time, like it wasn’t for me for a while, just getting their little newsletter is a great way to get little bites. I’m almost done with their beginner course and I feel it was a good level of challenge for me. I was a little worried it would be too basic for me, being an experienced therapist, but it wasn’t at all. Humbling ;)
There is also a great EFT therapist, Dr. Bukky Kolawole, who has a virtual 2-day MI training in November. I personally don’t have it in me to do day-long trainings on zoom, so I prefer the pace-yourself course with Bolter Consulting. But if a sprint is more your thing, the 2-day course may work for you!