Working the Difference: Science, Spirit, and the Spread of Motivational Interviewing 1st Edition

In this book, Carr demonstrates how motivational interviewing engages with histories of U.S. inflected notions of equality, democracy, and pragmatism. She demonstrates how deeply American a practice motivational interviewing is in how it constitutes a client’s ambivalence, and the conversational interactions that potentially will direct change. This should be read by anyone interested in how people train to become experts, or many interested in the critical social analysis of social work and therapy. But this book should also be necessary reading for anyone interested in how new techniques become a widespread phenomenon (it should be essential reading for anyone investigating the spread of pilates or life coaching or any of the other hundreds of disciplinary forms currently being commercialized that suggest ways for regulating conversation, social interactions, and bodily practice).

This text is a thorough analysis of the American pragmatic principles and poetics behind the global therapeutic of motivational interviewing. It is deeply instructive for those positioned in the human services and those who study experts, expertise, and the way therapies are developed, dispersed, and inspire people to take them up.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, found it to be enlightening in all the best ways. A highly readable, engaging piece of work. I loved this book, highly recommend!

This volume uses linguistic anthropological and other methods to take us inside the world of motivational interviewing. While Carr ends with suggestions for MI centered on social issues such as race, gender, class and other kinds of contextual influences, she fully recognizes that anthropology and other social sciences also have their limits. Compassionate and responsible scholarship.