University counselor travels overseas to become member of Motivational Interview Network
Angelica Dellapenna, licensed mental health counselor in the University Counseling Center (UCC), traveled to Tallinn, Estonia, in September to accomplish a goal — to become a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) at its annual conference.
Motivational interviewing (MI) is a counseling approach in which the provider allows individuals to advocate for their own behavioral change.
“How many times when having conversations about change do you want so badly to say, ‘I know what you need, go to this office or that office’?” said Dellapenna. “MI instead asks, ‘What do you already know? Can I provide some information? What do you think you’ll do?’ — eliciting the person’s own views of desire, reason and need rather than framing issues from a professional viewpoint. In MI, you’re going to hear when the people begin to believe they can make changes.”
To attend the MINT conference, Dellapenna completed a rigorous application plus a clinical interview before acceptance.She spent five days there with experts from around the world and now belongs to a network that offers her opportunities to further develop her skills in this foundational therapeutic approach. Additionally, membership gives her access to unique training tools.
“When I first started in drug and alcohol counseling 10 years ago, I observed common assumptions of change — the person is flawed in some way, that the counselor is ‘the’ expert,” said Dellapenna. “It’s something referred to as the ‘righting reflex,’ where helpers feel the need to tell the patient how to change. But a major idea of MI is if a person is not the one voicing his or her reasons for change, the behavior will not follow. I am humbled by these conversations and so very grateful for this approach and the opportunity to train in MI.”
On campus, Dellapenna is the instructor for the Support Empathy Empowerment Kindness (SEEK) internship. SEEK is a student-run helpline that Binghamton University students can call to talk through any issues they may be experiencing. Training the SEEK peers further developed her portfolio to apply for MINT.
“When the SEEK peers are first learning MI, you’ll hear them say, ‘My parents tell me to do all these things and I don’t do them,’ or ‘They thought I should have done this or that’ or ‘I’m doing them and I’m not that happy,’ so our interns are learning how to help these students who call the helpline find solutions for themselves based on what brings satisfaction to their lives,” Dellapenna said.
Dellapenna believes MI will not only help SEEK peers, but may be a great technique for offices all across campus including academic advising, the Decker Student Health Services Center, the Fleishman Center, Residential Life, clubs, athletic teams and more.
“When a student is struggling, these offices provide suggestions and opportunities to turn the situation around and suggest ways to fix the student’s ambivalence. However, using MI can help elicit the student’s motivation for deciding what they want, committing to it and taking the steps to accomplish that goal. For example, when you go to your doctor, the doctor might say, ‘What’s the matter?’” Dellapenna explained. “A way of flipping that [in MI] is, ‘What matters most to you?’”