Success with motivational interviewing techniques in the dental clinic: a case for the use of iMI-GPS

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a patient-centred, but directive technique that aims to help people change their behaviour. The premise behind Motivational Interviewing (MI) as proposed by Miller and Rollnick is that there is very little in terms of behavioural outcomes, wishes and needs that people are entirely certain about.¹ For example, a patient might want a perfect smile, but he/she might not be too certain about taking on the cost or time requirements that achieving this smile would involve. A young adult might want perfectly straight teeth, but might be ambivalent about wearing the headgear as instructed by the orthodontist. Finally, an adult with periodontitis might wish that he/she was free from halitosis but might not be motivated to brush and clean interdentally twice a day. This ambivalence, or uncertainty, about change, which traditionally behavioural scientists tended to see as a problem in getting patients to change their behaviour, is at the heart of MI and is seen by its proposers as the key state behind the success of helping people to change. So the first paradox about MI is that it sees an ambivalence about change as a helpful and necessary part of the process.