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Motivational interviewing is a widely used treatment, introduced by William Miller in 1983. The original target of the method was substance use disorders, but it has since been used to address a variety of other mental health concerns. Because it was developed inductively from clinical insights rather than deductively from a set of theoretical postulates, practitioners have had difficulty understanding how or why the method works. Previous attempts to fill that theoretical gap have not been fully successful. Thus, in this article, we apply principles of structure determinism, a constructivist model, in an attempt to clarify how core aspects of motivational interviewing function and how the method might be strengthened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an interview with Jay S. Efran, the developer of context-centered psychotherapy--an approach to psychotherapy greatly influenced by Humberto Maturana's structure determinism and George Kelly's personal construct theory. Because Efran has outlined the premises of context-centered therapy elsewhere, the interview focused on the nuts and bolts of Efran's independent practice, with the goal of illustrating how the way he works reflects his theoretical commitments. Efran was asked how he contracts with clients, structures first sessions, conducts the therapy that follows, and brings therapy to a conclusion. In addition to discussing what he sees as the predictors of therapeutic success, he was also asked about the size of his caseload, the duration of his sessions, the number of times he typically meets with clients, whether he takes notes during sessions, his thoughts on the role of medication in therapy, and how he handles insurance and billing. The interview concludes with a case study and advice to psychotherapists-in-training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]