Working the Difference: Science, Spirit, and the Spread of Motivational Interviewing - Softcover

Carr, E. Summerson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226827623 ISBN 13: 9780226827629

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2023

Synopsis

A history of motivational interviewing and what its rise reveals about how cultural forms emerge and spread.

Motivational interviewing (MI) is a professional practice, a behavioral therapy, and a self-professed conversation style that encourages clients to talk themselves into change. Originally developed to treat alcoholics, MI quickly spread into a variety of professional fields including corrections, medicine, and sanitation. In Working the Difference, E. Summerson Carr focuses on the training and dissemination of MI to explore how cultural forms—and particularly forms of expertise—emerge and spread. The result is a compelling analysis of the American preoccupations at MI’s core, from democratic autonomy and freedom of speech to Protestant ethics and American pragmatism.

About this title

About the Author

E. Summerson Carr is associate professor of social work and anthropology at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Scripting Addiction: The Politics of Therapeutic Talk and American Sobriety and co-editor of Scale: Discourse and Dimensions of Social Life.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2023
• ISBN 10: 0226827623
• ISBN 13: 9780226827629
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 291