Motivational interviewing (MI) is indeed a “bottom-up”
model that emerged from practical experience in the
field of alcohol treatment. The original description of
MI [1] suggested some links to social psychological theories,
but focused on an intuitive approach in treating
alcohol problems for which there was at the time no
empirical support. Our subsequent volumes [2,3] have
similarly focused on clinical applications without proposing
an underlying theory of treatment or change