Ep 96 – Enhancing MI Skills for Mental Health Providers
Talking To Change - A Motivational Interviewing PodcastShow Notes
Talking to Change: MI Practice Companion
In this episode of Talking to Change, Glenn Hinds and Sebastian Kaplan welcome Kristin Dempsey and Ali Hall to explore how mental health practitioners can strengthen their Motivational Interviewing skills through experiential learning, deliberate practice and feedback. Drawing on their book Advancing Motivational Interviewing: An Experiential Skills Guide for Mental Health Providers, the conversation considers an important question for anyone developing MI: how do we move from understanding Motivational Interviewing to using it skilfully in real conversations?
This Practice Companion draws out the practical learning from the conversation. It explores the assessment trap, using MI when time is limited, responding to wider systemic influences, and creating meaningful opportunities for deliberate practice. It also connects these ideas with related resources in the Motivational Interviewing Knowledge Centre for practitioners who want to develop their skills further.
Listen to the full conversation
This Practice Companion highlights selected ideas and practice implications from the episode. Listen to the full conversation with Kristin Dempsey and Ali Hall for the complete discussion, examples and reflections. Listen to Episode 96: Enhancing MI Skills for Mental Health Providers
Kristin Dempsey is a psychotherapist, trainer, and counselor educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has over 30 years’ experience working with individuals, youth, and families with challenging behavioral issues that impact their lives such as substance use disorders, co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders, trauma symptoms, and unresolved grief. Kristin believes that each individual has unlimited ability to change and grow, and she enjoys exploring the complexities of complex challenges and how to approach them with compassion and curiosity. Kristin has taught many classes in the counselor education curriculum, and she is currently focused on practitioner skill development, substance use disorder treatment, and effective practices in community mental health. Kristin is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT), and she currently teaches MI to behavioral health and other allied human services professionals. She is an adjunct professor at the Wright Institute’s Counseling Psychology Program and lecturing faculty at San Francisco State University. Kristin is the author of The Harm Reduction Workbook for Addiction (New Harbinger, 2024), co-author of Advancing Motivational Interviewing: An Experiential Skills Guide for Mental Health Professionals (PESI, April 2026), and a writer for The Mental Health and Substance Use Recovery Workbook (New Harbinger, May 2027).
Ali Hall is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT), a MINT Certified Trainer, and an independent consultant and trainer.
Ali has designed and facilitated thousands of MI workshops for a wide variety of providers, including those who serve within criminal justice systems, behavioral health, substance use recovery, mental health, health care, children/family services and wraparound, and has served multiple Training for New Trainers events. Ali regularly provides skill development coaching for interdisciplinary provider teams. Ali is the co-developer of the Motivational Interviewing Competency Assessment (MICA), a coding and coaching tool for MI skill improvement, co-author of the book Motivational Interviewing for Mental Health Clinicians: A Toolkit for Skill Development (2021), developer of the Cultivating Hope activity deck (2025) and co-author of Advancing Motivational Interviewing: An Experiential Skills Guide for Mental Health Providers (2026).
From knowing MI to practising MI
One of the central themes in this conversation is the difference between knowing about Motivational Interviewing and being able to use it skilfully in practice. Reading about MI, attending training and u
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