Motivational interviewing and the older population in psychiatry

Motivational interviewing is a psychological intervention that could potentially give clinical staff working with older people a way of tackling ambivalence and/or resistance to change in therapy. In this paper we discuss the main principles of this intervention and some adaptations necessary to meet the needs of older people. Patients require the capacity to understand and retain new information in order to make use of this intervention, which hence limits its use to those who retain good cognitive functioning. It is our opinion that motivational interviewing may be a useful intervention for those working with older people. So far, this technique has been proven to be beneficial for certain conditions in other age groups, both as a treatment option in its own right and as a prelude to other forms of treatment. However, it has not been described for use with older people. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)