Motivational therapy is a combination of humanistic treatment and enhanced cognitive-behavior

Behavior

Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...

al strategies

Strategy

Strategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked...

, designed to treat substance abuse

Substance abuse

A substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...

. It is similar to Motivational Interviewing

Motivational interviewing

Motivational interviewing refers to a counseling approach in part developed by clinical psychologists Professor William R Miller, Ph.D. and Professor Stephen Rollnick, Ph.D. The concept of motivational interviewing evolved from experience in the treatment of problem drinkers, and was first...

 and Motivational Enhancement Therapy

Motivational Enhancement Therapy

Motivational Enhancement Therapy or MET is a time-limited four-session adaptation used in Project MATCH , a US-government-funded study of treatment for alcohol problems and the Drinkers' Check-up, which provides normative-based feedback and explores client motivation to change in light of the...

Method

The focus of motivational therapy is encouraging a patient to develop a negative view of their abuse, along with a desire to change their behavior. A motivational therapist does not explicitly advocate change and tends to avoid directly contradicting their patient, but instead expresses empathy

Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...

, develops discrepancy, rolls with resistance, and supports self-efficacy

Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is a term used in psychology, roughly corresponding to a person's belief in their own competence.It has been defined as the belief that one is capable of performing in a certain manner to attain certain set of goals. It is believed that our personalized ideas of self-efficacy affect...

.

Often, a methadone

Methadone

Methadone is a synthetic opioid, used medically as an analgesic and a maintenance anti-addictive for use in patients with opioid dependency. It was developed in Germany in 1937...

 or similar program is used in conjunction with motivational therapy.

Some suggest that the success of motivational therapy is highly dependent on the quality of the therapist involved and, like all therapies, has no guaranteed result. Others explain the frequent successes of motivational therapy by noting that the patient is the ultimate source of change, choosing to reduce their dependency on drugs.

History

First publicized by Miller and Rollnick in 1991, motivational therapy is now seen as a highly effective treatment strategy for substance abuse, especially in the case of opiate

Opiate

In medicine, the term opiate describes any of the narcotic opioid alkaloids found as natural products in the opium poppy plant.-Overview:Opiates are so named because they are constituents or derivatives of constituents found in opium, which is processed from the latex sap of the opium poppy,...

 and euphoric-enhancement drugs, where users tend to resist traditional negative reinforcement strategies.