I read recently, of all places in a Jack Reacher novel, that “ninety per cent of asking questions is about listening to answers.” It’s true for all manner of communication and dialogue from teaching to detective work and certainly through to motivational interviewing. Remembering to use and practice using the MI acronym, OARS – Open-ended questions – Affirmations or Acknowledgment – Reflective Listening – Summarizing – really ingrains the importance and client-impact of listening. There is a video clip, ‘Remembering to Use OARS’ (click on the title to view). In this video, Kathleen Sciacca, a forerunner in the development of treatment methods, program development, and comprehensive services for Mental Illness, Drug Addiction, and Alcoholism with wide experience in a variety of treatment methods, talks about the importance of using OARS, the concepts of empathy, the potency of reflective listening, overcoming dialogue burnout/frustration, and the significance of truly staying with our clients when we listen to them. In some ways, motivational interviewing might well be understood to embody motivational listening; perhaps this method of communication could be understood to mean Motivational Interviewing through Listening to really impart the richness of MI and our ability to reach our clients effectively.
