Module 10 — Sharing Information and Advice the MI Way | Motivational Interviewing Course
- 13 hours ago
- 8 min read
Free Course by Everything IFS | Therapeutic Modalities Series
Module 10 — Sharing Information and Advice the MI Way (Elicit-Provide-Elicit)
The Worry About Advice
By now a reasonable worry has probably surfaced, especially for anyone whose role involves real knowledge: a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a coach, or simply a person who has learned something hard-won and wants to pass it on. If MI means not arguing, not pushing, not supplying people with reasons, does it also mean never telling anyone anything, never giving advice, sitting on useful knowledge while a person flounders?
It does not. This is one of the most common misunderstandings of the whole approach, and it is worth clearing away completely. MI is not advice-free, and it is not anti-information. Expertise is welcome. A person facing a real decision often does need facts they do not have, and sometimes they genuinely want to know what someone more experienced would suggest. Withholding all of that would not be respectful. It would just be unhelpful.
The real question was never whether to share information, but how and when. Information offered the usual way, unasked, all at once, delivered as a verdict, tends to bounce right off, because it arrives wearing the costume of the righting reflex, and people push back against being told what to think about as reliably as they push back against being told what to do. The very same information, offered differently, can land cleanly and turn out to be genuinely useful. MI simply pays close attention to that difference.
Asking First
The simplest and most overlooked move is to ask permission before offering information or advice. It can be as light as a single sentence. "Would it be all right if I shared something that might be relevant?" "Do you want my thoughts on this, or would it help more to just talk it through?" "There's something I've learned about this. Want to hear it?"
This small request changes the whole transaction, for a reason that has little to do with manners. Unasked advice arrives as an imposition, something done to a person, and the natural response to an imposition is to resist it. Advice a person has agreed to hear is something they have chosen, and people do not resist what they have invited. The identical words can land in opposite ways depending only on whether permission came first. Asking also hands the person a genuine choice, and occasionally they will decline, which is itself worth knowing, since advice a person did not want was never going to be taken anyway.
It is worth noticing that there are really two kinds of permission, and they are not the same. One is permission to share information, the plain facts a person may simply be missing. The other is permission to offer an opinion or a recommendation, which is a more personal thing to hand someone. A careful helper keeps the two apart and asks again rather than assuming that a yes to one is a yes to the other. Permission is also not a single gate passed once at the beginning. In a longer conversation it can be sought more than once, each time something new is about to be offered.
There is one honest caution. Asking permission works only when it is real. "Can I make a suggestion?" asked while already drawing breath to make it, with no room left for a no, is not a question but a formality, and people hear the difference at once. A genuine request leaves the door open to either answer.
Elicit, Provide, Elicit
The method MI uses for sharing information carries a slightly clinical name but a very simple shape. It is called Elicit-Provide-Elicit, and it turns the handing over of information into something closer to a conversation. It moves in three steps.
First, elicit. Before offering anything, find out what the person already knows and what they actually want to know. A person is rarely a blank slate, and they have usually thought about the matter more than an outsider would guess. "What do you already know about this?" "What would be most useful for you to hear?" This does two useful things. It avoids the small insult of explaining what someone already understands, and it reveals the gap that is actually worth filling.
Then, provide. Offer the information clearly, plainly, and without spin, in pieces small enough to take in. The aim is to inform, not to win. The information is laid out in neutral terms and left for the person to weigh, rather than bent toward the conclusion the helper is hoping they will reach. Facts delivered as ammunition feel like ammunition. The same facts set out honestly, for a person to make of them what they will, feel like respect.
Then, elicit once more. Having offered the information, ask what the person makes of it. "What do you think of that?" "How does that fit with your situation?" This last step is the one most often skipped, and it is the one that matters most. It hands the information over to the person to interpret and apply to their own life, rather than leaving it sitting there like a pronouncement. It turns a small lecture back into a dialogue.
The shape is easy to see in an ordinary exchange. Suppose a friend has been sleeping badly and mentions it, and you happen to know something that once helped you. The righting reflex jumps straight to "You need to stop looking at your phone in bed." The Elicit-Provide-Elicit version sounds quite different. First: "What have you already tried?" Perhaps they have tried several things, and screens never came up. Then, with permission: "One thing that made a real difference for me was getting the phone out of the bedroom completely. Want me to tell you how I set it up?" And afterward: "Does that sound like it might fit your situation, or not really?" Same knowledge, same friend, but offered as a gift to consider rather than an order to obey, and far more likely to actually be tried.
Options, Not Orders, and Chunk-Check-Chunk
Two refinements make the method sturdier still.
When it comes to advice in particular, offering options tends to work far better than issuing a single directive. "Some people find it helps to do one thing, others go a different route, and a few try something else again. Do any of those sound like they might fit?" A menu of possibilities keeps the choice with the person, where it belongs and where it has the best chance of being acted on. A single instruction invites only a yes or a no, and often a quiet no. A handful of options invites a person to choose, which is a far more committing act than merely agreeing.
For anything longer or more complicated, the same spirit runs through what is sometimes called chunk-check-chunk. Rather than delivering a long block of information all at once, offer a small piece, then pause to check, "Is this making sense so far? What do you make of it?", and only then offer the next piece. This keeps the exchange a two-way street even when there is a great deal to convey, and it prevents the slow slide back into a monologue, which is exactly where information stops landing. A person who has worked with an MI-trained clinician may recognize this rhythm, the way good ones ask what you already know before explaining anything, and check in partway through rather than burying you in a speech.
Occasionally a person skips all of this and asks outright, "What would you do?" or "Just tell me what I should do." This is not a trap, and it does not call for coyness or for bouncing the question endlessly back. When someone genuinely asks, the respectful move is to answer, while keeping the answer in proportion: offering it as one view rather than the verdict, usually with a light reminder that what worked in one life may not fit another, and then handing the decision back where it belongs. "Here is what I would lean toward, for whatever it is worth, though you know your own situation far better than I do. What do you make of it?" The advice is given, freely and honestly. The person simply remains the one who gets to decide what to do with it.
Expertise Without the Reflex
All of this draws a clear line between two things that can look identical from the outside yet feel completely different to the person on the receiving end. On one side is the automatic righting reflex: seeing a problem and reaching in, unasked, to solve it, supplying the answer because it is obvious and the urge is strong. On the other is skillful sharing: information and advice offered with permission, in the person's own context, as something to consider rather than to obey. The words spoken might even be the same. What differs is whether the person stayed the one steering their own life.
This is the resolution of the worry that opened the lesson. A person sometimes genuinely needs information that only the helper has, and there is no virtue at all in keeping it from them. The skill is not to withhold knowledge but to offer it in a way that leaves the person's autonomy intact, so the information feeds their thinking rather than replacing it. Expertise handled this way stops feeling at odds with MI. It becomes simply one more thing a helper can bring, offered in the same spirit as everything else.
The next time the urge rises to tell someone what they ought to know or do, there is a small sequence worth trying in place of the usual rush. Ask first whether they want it. Find out what they already know. Offer what you have plainly, in a piece or two. Then ask what they make of it. It takes only slightly longer than blurting the advice out, and the difference in whether it is actually heard is enormous. Information was never the problem. The only thing that ever needed to change was who got to decide what to do with it.
Motivational Interviewing Practice: Ask, Share, Ask Again
Set aside 5–10 minutes for this practice. Grab a notebook, a piece of paper, or open a notes app.
Think of a situation where you might want to give someone advice or share information. Choose something ordinary: a health habit, a work problem, a relationship issue, a parenting decision, a routine, or something practical.
At the top of the page, write:
A situation where I might want to give advice or information is:
Briefly describe the situation.
Now practice the three-part MI sequence.
1. Elicit
Before giving advice, write one sentence that asks what the person already knows, wants, or would find useful.
For example:
What have you already tried?
What do you already know about this?
Would it be useful to hear something I’ve learned about this?
Do you want my thoughts, or would it help more to talk it through?
2. Provide
Now write one small piece of information or advice you could offer clearly and respectfully.
Keep it short. Do not turn it into a lecture. Offer it as something to consider, not something the person has to obey.
For example:
One thing some people find helpful is starting with a very small step instead of trying to change everything at once.
What I’ve learned is that this usually works better when the plan is specific rather than vague.
One option might be to try it for a week and see what you notice.
3. Elicit Again
After sharing, write one question that gives the decision back to the person.
For example:
What do you make of that?
How does that fit with your situation?
Does any part of that feel useful, or not really?
What feels like it would actually work for you?
When you are finished, read the three parts together.
Notice the difference between giving advice as an order and offering information as part of a conversation. This practice is not about withholding what you know. In Motivational Interviewing, information and advice can be helpful when they are offered with permission, kept small enough to take in, and handed back to the person to consider for themselves. The goal is not to make the decision for them. The goal is to share what may be useful while leaving their autonomy intact.
Comments