Asking the right questions in a counseling setting can help a participant on their journey toward positive behavior change – but asking confrontational questions can have the opposite effect, causing a participant to justify negative behaviors. With a lot on the line, where do you begin?
Motivational interviewing includes using targeted questions to evoke participants’ own Desires, Abilities, Reasons and Needs for change (DARN). Asking the right kinds of questions eases facilitation by helping participants increase their arguments in favor of positive change.
Facilitation is all about asking the right questions. First, beware of the killer questions...
The goal is to ask questions that participants will likely answer with change talk, or DARN language.
Desire questions:
What do you hope to accomplish in this program?
How do you want your life to be different one year from now?
What is the most important thing in your life today that you want to change?
Ability questions:
What gives you confidence that you will be successful in this program?
If you decided to change, how could you do it?
What are you willing to try in order to make this change?
Reason questions:
Even if you are not ready to make changes today, if you were to change, what would be
three reasons for making changes?
Why do you want to change?
What would be some of the advantages of this change?
Need questions:
How important is it for you to make this change? (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being
not important and 10 being extremely important)
What needs to happen in order to make this change?
How serious or urgent does this feel to you?
These types of MI questions focus responsibility for decisions about change with each participant, highlighting their sense of autonomy, freedom of choice and control.
The evidence-based practice of Interactive Journaling® was created by The Change Companies with the assistance of more than 250 professionals in the health and human services fields. Interactive Journals are designed to engage participants and hold their interest as they learn evidence-based methods for self-change. Every Interactive Journal also has an accompanying Facilitator Guide, full of evidence-based activities, discussion topics and motivational questions. We’re here to not only help the end user, but also to walk alongside providers and facilitators and make your job as streamlined as possible.