Changing negative motivation to positive motivation

Both negative and positive motivation can be very helpful to our clients, but developing positive motivation is a prerequisite of quality sobriety.

When we are negatively motivated, we move away from something we are averse to. We try as best we can to avoid pain and discomfort, and this is often very helpful to us. We are negatively motivated to flee a burning building, for example, because we want to avoid the smoke and flames.

Somewhere along the way, if our clients are to be reasonably happy and successful, they have to figure out what they do want; too often, formal treatment does not focus clearly enough on this. This lack of attention to positive motivation may be a contributing factor to the disappointing outcomes we sometimes experience.In the same way, many substance abuse clients are motivated by what they don't want: health consequences of heavy use, legal consequences of possession and sale, getting fired from a job, getting kicked out of the family, loss of parental rights, and so on. This is often helpful in the client's decision to seek treatment. But once the decision to enter treatment has successfully neutralized the immediate threat (of prison, loss of job, loss of family, etc.), the client may seem unmotivated. The threats of ruined health and ruined relationships don't seem to be enough, in themselves, to motivate some substance abusers to stop and stay stopped.

Those with negative motivation are moved by fearful thoughts and stressful emotions. Even though their goal may be admirable (abstinence, keeping a job, saving a marriage), its pursuit is not rewarding or satisfying in the way it would be for someone with positive motivation. Those moving toward a goal with positive motivation are often happy and excited.

For example, consider the case of two students, studying to be doctors. One is negatively motivated, by not wanting to disappoint his father. He studies only because he wants to avoid failing, and he is constantly stressed.

The other student is positively motivated by a desire to help others, to make a difference in the world, and to be able to support a comfortable lifestyle. She is excited about her courses. She's so interested in the curricula and motivated to learn that she welcomes the exams. She is pleased when she does well and even pleased when an exam identifies areas in which she needs to work toward a better understanding.

Which one of these two doctors would you rather have operating on you? If the first student's sole reason for becoming a doctor was to avoid disappointing his father, he surely will be unhappy and unfulfilled. If he found his own reasons to strive for success, this positive motivation surely would enhance the quality of the doctor's service as well as the quality of the doctor's life.

And so it is with the quality of sobriety. Those who develop positive motivation for sobriety connect it to other goals. Sobriety is not so much valued as a goal in and of itself, but is meaningful because it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. The focus is not on the unpleasant task of avoiding alcohol or drugs, but on the many rewards of quality sobriety.

Developing positive motivation

So counselors can be of great service to their clients by helping them to build positive motivation to change. This requires less of an emphasis on what the client doesn't want and more of an emphasis on the unique preferred future for each individual client.

"Problem solving" is often among the skills treatment programs try to develop, and this approach can be very helpful. But it may not be offering the client a chance to develop positive motivation. The big focus is on something the client wants to avoid, rather than something the client wants to achieve. Even when the therapy is called "solution-focused," it's often the problem that remains center stage.

Counselors can help build positive motivation by looking forward instead of backward. Instead of examining past failures for ways to avoid mistakes, examine future potential and ways to accomplish personal goals. Work to connect the tools of your program to the things your clients value most in life. Help your clients identify areas of competence, then help them expand that competence. Competence can be found in places counselors usually don't look, such as planning, organizational, or leadership skills previously used in a criminal lifestyle. Many skills that your clients already have can be redirected toward positive goals.

Clients are unlikely to commit themselves to positive goals or to develop positive motivation if they are convinced that their goals are unachievable, so self-efficacy is an important ingredient for success. Counselors can help develop self-efficacy by shining some light on the resources at each client's disposal. These may be personal resources such as persistence, relationship resources such as a supportive spouse, or organizational resources such as schools and government services.

When working to build positive motivation, a counselor also can make a difference by helping the client separate hope from wishful thinking. The client's preferred future must be grounded in reality, not fantasy. Hope is based in reality. It inspires action and is an important ingredient in success. Wishful thinking is passive and discourages action. The fantasy is that things beyond the client's control will change in exactly the ways that the client would like them to change. This sets the client up for disappointment and failure.
So be thankful for the negative motivation that often motivates clients for treatment. Understand that it will take some work on the part of both client and counselor to develop positive motivation. And work to help you and your clients get excited about their own unique futures.

by Nicholas A. Roes