PaPS Fireside Chat Meeting Space page
Pennsylvania Psychiatric Society Hosts
Fireside Chat Series: Motivational Interviewing and Social Dominance
September 20, 2023
7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Speaker:
William R. Miller, Ph.D.
University of New Mexico
Moderator:
Mayank Gupta, MD,
PaPS Pittsburgh Chapter
Speaker Bio
Bill Miller, a Pennsylvania native, first described the clinical method of motivational
interviewing (MI) in a 1983 article in Behavioural Psychotherapy. In the subsequent 40 years, MI
has been taught and practiced in at least 70 languages in a broad range of helping professions
and has been studied in more than 2,000 controlled trials worldwide. What accounts for this
rapid dissemination of what began as a psychotherapy? An Australian psychologist, Abilio de
Almeida Neto, has proposed an evolutionary explanation for the efficacy and appeal of MI: that
it begins by yielding. Dr. Miller will briefly describe MI and its relationship to social dominance,
with ample time for discussion.
