Building skills and tools for conversations

  • Focus: Increase confidence and reduce perceived barriers by teaching MI micro‑skills and ACT‑informed strategies alongside the 5As.
  • Key elements:
    • Stepwise strategies (e.g., ask permission, explore perspective, 5As) with concrete, MI‑consistent examples and language.
    • Ready‑to‑use scripts, prompts, and EHR text that embed MI OARS and ACT‑consistent phrasing (e.g., validating difficult feelings, linking to values, normalizing setbacks).
    • Overview of the 5As counseling technique (Assess, Advise, Agree, Assist, Arrange) applied to obesity care, with guidance on how each step can be conducted in an MI‑consistent, ACT‑informed manner.
    • Assessing readiness for change using MI (scaling questions, exploring ambivalence) and using ACT to help patients notice and accept internal barriers (cravings, shame, hopeless thoughts) while still taking small, values‑consistent steps.
    • Using gain‑framed, hopeful messaging about modest weight loss benefits and long‑term self‑management, emphasizing values (e.g., being active with family, living one’s faith, maintaining independence) rather than appearance.
  • MI and ACT skill components:
    • MI OARS: practice with open questions, affirmations, complex reflections, and summaries specifically tailored to obesity conversations (e.g., reflecting ambivalence about past weight loss attempts).
    • Evoking change talk: eliciting patients’ own reasons, needs, and hopes for change rather than prescribing goals.
    • ACT processes: brief values clarification exercises (e.g., 1–2 card‑sort or question prompts), normalizing and validating difficult thoughts/feelings, and introducing "defusion" statements ("I’m noticing the thought that I always fail" vs "I am a failure").

Target Audience

All Healthcare providers caring for patients with obesity.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

  1. Initiate an obesity-related conversation using people-first language and explicit permission-seeking.
  2. Apply MI OARS skills—open questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries—to explore patient perspectives and ambivalence.
  3. Use the 5As framework to structure a brief obesity-care conversation.
  4. Incorporate ACT-informed strategies to validate difficult internal experiences, clarify values, and support small values-consistent actions.
  5. Use gain-framed, hopeful language about health, function, and long-term self-management without centering appearance or blame.
  6. Respond to common “stuck moments” with MI-consistent and ACT-informed language.
  7. Draft a brief obesity-care dialogue demonstrating MI spirit and at least one ACT-informed strategy.
Additional information

Contact

Name: 
Linda Caples
Phone Number: 
+1 (414) 955-4900
Email: 
[email protected]

Course summary

Available credit: 
  • 1.25 Hours of Participation
    Hours of Participation credit.
Course opens: 
10/05/2026
Course expires: 
12/31/2027
Cost:
$0.00
Part of: 
Talking to Patients About Obesity
Rating: 
0

Available Credit

  • 1.25 Hours of Participation
    Hours of Participation credit.

Price

Cost:
$0.00
Please login or register to take this course.