MI for Change: Motivational Interviewing in ABA & Mental Health

MI for Change is the podcast dedicated to exploring Motivational Interviewing (MI) in behavior analysis and mental health. Hosted by Dr. Monica Gilbert, a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and Licensed Psychologist, this show helps professionals transform client conversations — one question at a time. Each episode delivers: ✨ Practical MI strategies you can apply immediately in sessions ✨ Real case examples that bring concepts to life ✨ Inspiring interviews with experts across ABA and mental health Whether you’re an ABA practitioner, therapist, counselor, or student, you’ll discover how simple shifts in communication can reduce resistance, strengthen rapport, and spark lasting change. Because parent coaching and client conversations don’t have to feel like a struggle — they can be the spark that makes transformation possible. Subscribe today and join the journey to becom

MI for Change: Motivational Interviewing in ABA & Mental Health is a health podcast hosted by Monica Gilbert, with 54 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Monica Gilbert hosts MI for Change: Motivational Interviewing in ABA & Mental Health, a health show with 54 episodes published.

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  Episode #4

  When a Family Just Got a Diagnosis — Your First Job Isn't What You Think

  Sep 29, 202617 minS4

  Share Your Thoughts With Us You walk in with your clipboard. Your intake paperwork. Your assessment tools. Your predetermined questions and your full plan for the session. And you look at this parent. They're answering you. They're being cooperative. They're signing the consent forms. Saying yes to everything. But they're not really there. In this episode Dr. Monica Gilbert — recording live from the FABA conference in Orlando — talks about what she's learned about the moment a family receives a diagnosis and what BCBAs and intake coordinators are often missing in that first session. Not because they don't care, but because they're trained to move forward with the clinical plan before the parent is anywhere near ready for it. The insight at the center of this episode is one of the most important in the series: we mistake quiet for understanding. We mistake agreement for buy-in. We mistake compliance for readiness. And a parent who says yes to everything may not be bought in at all — she may just not trust herself yet. Monica walks through what engagement actually looks like in that first session, the specific questions that change everything, and why slowing down in session one often makes the entire process faster. Including the question she now asks every newly diagnosed family before opening a single form. Learn more about Motivational Interviewing and explore on-demand courses at www.drmonicagilbert.com Join the MI Academy for practical training and resources — and enjoy an exclusive 15% off with code MIFORCHANGE at checkout. Connect with me on Instagram: @drmonicagilbert

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  Episode #3

  BCBA Parent Session Anxiety: Why Confidence Isn't the Problem

  Sep 22, 202614 minS4

  Share Your Thoughts With Us Have you ever sat in your car before a parent session, rehearsing the whole conversation in your head? Deciding what to cover first, what questions to ask, how to respond if the parent brings up that one thing? It's not because you don't know what you're doing. It's because parent sessions feel unpredictable. And unpredictable is a very specific kind of uncomfortable. In this episode Dr. Monica Gilbert names the word she hears from BCBAs over and over — not hard, not exhausting — unpredictable. And she makes the case that the feeling most clinicians call "not being confident" in parent sessions isn't actually a confidence problem. It's a framework problem. And those are completely different. She walks through the story of a BCBA she was consulting with — clinically sharp, strong cases, good relationship with her clients — who would lose her footing the moment a parent said something she didn't expect. What that BCBA needed wasn't more clinical knowledge, more charisma, or more self-belief. She needed a way to navigate a conversation she couldn't predict. The line this clinician said after one particular session is what this whole episode is about: "I didn't know where the conversation was going to go. But I knew what to do when it got there." That's not certainty. That's navigation. And navigation is something you can learn. Learn more about Motivational Interviewing and explore on-demand courses at www.drmonicagilbert.com Join the MI Academy for practical training and resources — and enjoy an exclusive 15% off with code MIFORCHANGE at checkout. Connect with me on Instagram: @drmonicagilbert

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  Episode #2

  When "Okay" Doesn't Mean Agreement — What Collaboration Actually Looks Like in a Clinical Conversation

  Sep 2, 202618 minS4

  When a patient says "okay" — what does that actually mean? Sometimes it means I agree. Sometimes it means I understand. And sometimes it just means I don't know how to disagree with you. Those are three completely different situations. And if we treat them all the same way — if we accept the okay and move forward — we're building a plan on a foundation that was never there. In this episode Dr. Monica Gilbert uses a psychiatric treatment conversation she encountered in the news to explore something much broader: what genuine collaboration actually looks like when one person in the room has clinical expertise and the other has lived experience. And why those are two different kinds of expertise — both necessary, neither sufficient on its own. This episode is not about any specific case, verdict, or individual. It's about a moment in a clinical conversation that illustrated something Monica has been teaching for years: MI is not about giving clients control over things outside their control. It's about giving them a voice in the conversation about their own lives. It's about the difference between compliance and collaboration. And it's about what happens when we treat resistance as information instead of as the enemy. The MI challenge at the end of this episode is one of the most practically useful in the series. You'll want to write it down. Learn more about Motivational Interviewing and explore on-demand courses at www.drmonicagilbert.com Join the MI Academy for practical training and resources — and enjoy an exclusive 15% off with code MIFORCHANGE at checkout. Connect with me on Instagram: @drmonicagilbert

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  Episode #1

  You Don't Have an OARS Problem — You Have a Timing Problem

  Aug 25, 202620 minS4

  You've learned the OARS. You're asking open questions, you're reflecting, you're using affirmations. And you leave the session thinking — why didn't that conversation move? Why does it still feel like I'm pushing? Here's what Dr. Monica Gilbert realized about her own early MI work: it wasn't an OARS problem. It was a timing problem. OARS are the ingredients. The four MI processes are the recipe. And if you don't understand the recipe, you can have the best ingredients in the world and still somehow make a quiche when you wanted a pizza. In this episode Monica gets practical — all the way down to the specific questions, reflections, and affirmations that belong at each stage of a parent session. She walks through a morning routine case start to finish: what to ask in Engage when your brain is already three steps ahead, how to find Focus when a session is wandering across behaviors and school and grandma and bedtime, what to do when you hear change talk in Evoke and every instinct tells you to move, and the two very different endings a Plan session can have — one that looks good on paper and never gets implemented, and one where the parent solves her own implementation barrier before she leaves the room. If you've been using MI techniques and still feeling like something is off — this is the episode that names what it is. Learn more about Motivational Interviewing and explore on-demand courses at www.drmonicagilbert.com Join the MI Academy for practical training and resources — and enjoy an exclusive 15% off with code MIFORCHANGE at checkout. Connect with me on Instagram: @drmonicagilbert

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  Episode #50

  The Missing Ingredient in Your Parent Training Sessions

  Aug 18, 202610 minS3

  You have the curriculum. You have the motivation. You've taken a course, learned the techniques, told yourself you're going to use open-ended questions and affirmations and reflections in your next parent session. And it still feels like something is missing. In this episode Dr. Monica Gilbert opens with a story about trying to bake a protein pizza — having almost every ingredient, skipping the one she didn't have, and ending up with a quiche. The metaphor is sharper than it sounds: in parent training sessions, knowing the tools isn't the same as knowing how to combine them. And it's the combination that makes the difference between a session with good rapport and a session where the parent actually moves. This episode covers the most important reframe of the entire arc: are you doing parent training TO the parent — or WITH and FOR the parent? One word changes everything about how you show up in the room. Monica also introduces the relationship between OARS and the four MI processes — how knowing where a parent is in the change process tells you exactly which tool to use, how much of it, and when. Not just what the tools are. When to use them. Next episode: the full breakdown of how to apply OARS across each of the four processes. Learn more about Motivational Interviewing and explore on-demand courses at www.drmonicagilbert.com Join the MI Academy for practical training and resources — and enjoy an exclusive 15% off with code MIFORCHANGE at checkout. Connect with me on Instagram: @drmonicagilbert

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