Motivational Interviewing Therapy for Adults in NJ, PA, FL and TX
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and Licensed Clinical Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LCADC) offering Motivational Interviewing therapy online to adults in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas. I use MI as a primary framework for working with ambivalence about change, particularly where that ambivalence involves substance use, addictive behavior, or patterns a person wants to shift but cannot through willpower or understanding alone.
What is Motivational Interviewing?
Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative, person-centered counseling approach developed by psychologists William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick in the 1980s, initially from Miller's observations about what actually helped people change their relationship with alcohol. First published by Miller in 1983 and validated across more than 200 randomized controlled trials, MI is one of the most extensively researched approaches in behavioral health. The core insight of MI is that people already carry within themselves the motivation to change. The therapist's role is not to supply that motivation from the outside, or to persuade, argue, or confront. It is to create the conditions in which the person can access and strengthen their own reasons for change, while honestly examining what makes change difficult. MI operates through four core communication skills: open questions, affirmations, reflective listening, and summarizing. Together these create a clinical conversation that draws out the client's own change talk rather than the therapist's agenda. In short, MI works because it treats ambivalence as information rather than resistance, and motivation as something to be evoked rather than imposed.
What Motivational Interviewing sessions look like
Motivational Interviewing sessions feel different from most therapy. There is no agenda imposed from the therapist, no list of changes the client should make, and no confrontation of resistance as a problem to overcome. The session is structured by the client's own concerns, values, and goals. In practice, I open sessions with questions that invite the client's perspective: what they are considering changing, what feels uncertain about that, what they value that is in tension with the current pattern. I reflect back what I hear, including the ambivalence, in ways that allow the client to hear their own reasoning more clearly. This is not passive listening. Skilled MI requires active tracking of change talk, the client's own arguments for change, and sustain talk, the pull toward staying the same, and responding in ways that strengthen change talk without creating more sustain talk through pressure or confrontation. Sessions move through recognizing ambivalence, strengthening motivation, and when the client is ready, planning concrete steps. In short, an MI session is a conversation structured around your own reasons for change, not the therapist's agenda for what that change should be.
What Motivational Interviewing treats
MI is most strongly indicated where ambivalence about change is the primary clinical obstacle: substance use, alcohol use, addictive and compulsive behaviors, treatment resistance, and any situation where a person recognizes that something needs to change but cannot translate that recognition into sustained action. Research across more than 200 trials demonstrates MI as effective for substance use disorders, smoking cessation, medication adherence, and health behavior change across diverse clinical populations. Beyond formal diagnosis, MI is particularly useful for high-functioning adults who understand their patterns clearly and still find themselves returning to them. The intellectual understanding of why a behavior is problematic rarely resolves ambivalence. MI addresses the motivational layer beneath cognition: the competing values, fears, and attachments that keep a person in a pattern their rational mind has already assessed and rejected. Within an integrative approach, MI connects naturally with Internal Family Systems: the ambivalence MI explores is often organized by the parts IFS identifies. The firefighter reaching for a substance and the manager insisting on change are running the same conversation that MI helps make explicit. In short, MI is indicated wherever change is wanted but ambivalence about it is the real obstacle.
Why I use Motivational Interviewing
I use Motivational Interviewing because it is the most honest framework I have found for working with genuine ambivalence, and I hold an LCADC credential reflecting specific training in its application to substance use and addictive behavior. Most approaches to behavior change carry an implicit agenda: change is the goal and therapy is the mechanism for achieving it. MI rejects that structure. The therapist does not know better than the client what change is appropriate, at what pace, or whether abstinence is the right outcome. My LCADC training in New Jersey required specific education in MI as a clinical framework, not as a technique to mention briefly and move past. The intersection of MI with IFS is where I find the most clinical traction in this work. When ambivalence can be understood as a conversation between internal parts with different needs and fears rather than as a character failure or lack of willpower, the work shifts from trying to override sustain talk to building understanding between the parts generating it. That shift produces more durable change. In short, I use MI because it starts where the client actually is rather than where a treatment protocol assumes they should be.
Fees and insurance
Alchemy Psychotherapy is a private-pay, out-of-network practice. The biopsychosocial assessment is $300. Standard 45-minute sessions are $250. A 30-minute session is $185 when clinically indicated. In limited circumstances, a reduced fee is available based on financial need and current caseload availability. I do not bill insurance directly, but I provide a Superbill on the first of each month for clients with out-of-network mental health benefits. Under the No Surprises Act, you have the right to a Good Faith Estimate of expected charges before treatment begins. In short, private-pay therapy removes insurance company involvement from clinical decisions about session frequency, treatment duration, and modality choice.
How to get started
Beginning therapy involves three steps, handled entirely online. First, a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation where we discuss what brings you in and determine fit. Second, intake paperwork through a secure client portal. Third, the biopsychosocial assessment session of 60 to 90 minutes.
If we agree the practice is a good fit during the consultation, you typically begin treatment within one to two weeks. I am currently accepting new clients in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas. You can also learn more about individual online therapy or review the full services page.
Currently accepting new clients for Motivational Interviewing therapy.
Frequently Asked Questions About Motivational Interviewing Therapy
What is Motivational Interviewing?
Motivational Interviewing is a collaborative, person-centered counseling approach developed by William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick in the 1980s to help people resolve ambivalence about change. Rather than persuading or directing, the therapist evokes the client's own motivations through open questions, affirmations, and reflective listening. The goal is to strengthen the client's own arguments for change, not to impose the therapist's.
What is the difference between Motivational Interviewing and other therapy?
Most therapy assumes the client is ready to change and focuses on how. MI addresses the step before that: whether the person is genuinely ready and what is making change difficult. It is deliberately non-confrontational and avoids imposing direction. Rather than correcting ambivalence, MI explores it as meaningful information about what the client actually values, fears, and wants.
Is Motivational Interviewing only for substance use?
No. While MI was developed in addiction treatment, it has been validated across health behavior change, eating disorders, medication adherence, and treatment engagement for anxiety and depression. Any situation where a person understands that change is needed but remains genuinely ambivalent about it is a situation where MI applies. It is especially effective when more directive approaches have not worked.
Is Motivational Interviewing evidence-based?
Yes. MI has been validated across more than 200 randomized controlled trials, making it one of the most researched behavioral health interventions available. Meta-analyses consistently demonstrate its effectiveness for substance use, health behavior change, and treatment engagement. Research also shows that even brief MI interventions of one to two sessions can produce meaningful changes in motivation for some clients.
How is Motivational Interviewing different from confrontational addiction treatment?
Traditional addiction treatment often used confrontation, treating resistance as denial and challenging it directly. Research showed confrontational approaches correlated with worse outcomes. MI emerged in part as a response to that evidence. It treats resistance as information about what the client values and fears, and responds with reflection and curiosity rather than argument, producing better engagement and more durable change.
How long does Motivational Interviewing therapy take?
MI can be effective in as few as one to two sessions for specific behavior change goals. When MI is one component of longer-term treatment, as it often is in substance use and trauma work, it continues across the course of therapy as a way of honoring the client's evolving readiness rather than as a fixed protocol. Timeline is determined by the client's own pace of change.