Motivational interviewing (MI; Miller & Rollnick, 2013) is a person-centered counseling style for addressing ambivalence about change and has had widespread evidence of efficacy, particularly in treating addictions.

Certain individual therapist behaviors, or micro-skills, within motivational interviewing can either elicit both client change talk and sustain talk or suppress both types of client language.

Affirmations, in which the therapist says something positive or complimentary to the client, was the only therapist micro-skill that both increased change talk and also reduced sustain talk.

The use of any skills consistent with MI is recommended, but in particular, the use of reflections (both simple and complex) and open questions may be the most efficient way to facilitate discussion of the pros and cons of the target behavior.