Coaching Practiced

24 MI – Balance sheet techniques

Jonathan Passmore

Abstract

This article is the second paper drawing on the application of motivational interviewing within coaching. I previously summarised briefly the principles of Motivational Interviewing (Passmore, 2011a) and offered one technique – reflective listening (Passmore, 2011b). In this paper I will briefly review a technique called decisional balance or ‘the balance sheet’.

Original publication details: Passmore, J. (2011, December). MI balance sheet techniques.The Coaching Psychologist, 7(2), 151–153. Reproduced with permission of The British Psychological Society.

BEHAVIOUR CHANGE

Making a change is hard for most of us. People often have views which both promote change and which get in their way. They see the potential advantages of changing, but also the advantages of their current behaviour. This type of thinking, arguing both sides of the argument for and against change, can lead to ambivalence. Ultimately this can lead to the coachee becoming stuck and being unable to make a change. This is natural, but for change to happen the coachee needs to overcome this log-jam of ambivalence and develop the motivation to make a change.

MI is a sophisticated approach to behaviour change which is suited to skilled practitioners such as coaching psychologists (Passmore & Whybrow, 2007). In using the approach the key task for the MI coach is to help their coachee explore and understand the coachee’s own ambivalence – reluctance to change. ...