This blog is a bit unusual in that we want to use an example from a series of presentations called, “Cancer Care Talks: Strategies to Empower Your Wellness.” The talk is entitled, Survivorship: How do You Want it to Be? and the reason we want to highlight it is because it demonstrates vividly how patients and health professionals can shift the focus or perspective on a situation by using motivational and behaviour change tactics. In what tangible ways can a person faced with a dire diagnosis and life-changing reality – like cancer – alter her outlook from survival to thrival? What can a patient do when faced with seemingly insurmountable amounts of you-should-advice and with strong feelings of being overwhelmed and out of control to integrate a health issue into one’s life, to create a new normal? This video provides a myriad of suggestions, reflections, insights, and MI-style questions that can be used to empower anyone’s wellness, no matter what health issue one faces. The talk by Dr. Jennifer Irwin can be found by clicking here, Survivorship: How do You Want it to Be? Notice as well how MI tactics can be explained and utilized within a group setting; that is, MI is not just an individual counseling style, its principles can be taught and caught as tactics within groups as well as applied in individual sessions.
