Just telling our patients to improve their lifestyle, usually doesn't work. Learn how to help them find their own motivations to improve their health.

We are experienced Brief Motivational Interviewing (MI) trainers. Brief MI is an evidence based, patient-centered counseling philosophy that helps people explore and work through their ambivalence about making health behavior change. Brief communication tools, such as, Brief MI, Stages of Change, SBIRT and Clinical Empathy can be taught to and used by busy medical practitioners. You don't have to be a trained counselor to use these tools.

Health behavior change counseling helps people struggling to improve their nutrition, exercise, sleep, relaxation practices, and medication & supplement management. It can also help those suffering with smoking, alcohol & drug use problems.

We teach clinicians to provide their patients with self management support, that is, to assist their patients in becoming informed and activated health self managers.

We get your challenges. We are clinician teachers. 

We trained with Dr. William Miller, the founder of Motivational Interviewing and are members of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers. We developed one of the first motivational interviewing 3-year curriculum for physicians and began the nation's first premedical student health coach project. We’ve been training healthcare providers in health behavior change counseling since 2000. 

S​ettings we've provided services for:

UCSF Positive Health, USC School of Medicine, UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program, Contra Costa & Alameda Health Systems, American & California Societies of Addiction Medicine, Partnership Health Plan, Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine Fellowship, Sutter Hospital, California Healthcare Foundation, and many others.

Our workshops include training in:

 Brief motivational interviewing package of tools, stages of change model, clinical empathy, health coaching, SBIRT (screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment for substance use problems), and linking to chronic care model & self-management support.

We adapt to your needs:

We will come to your place of work with a practical experiential workshop that fits your needs. It may be a brief introduction or a longer 2-day training. We can help you design a plan to provide on-going communication coaching to your providers. We can consult with you to improve your health system's empathic communication skills.

Some quotes from our learners:

"I've had many MI trainings, but yours was the best."
(medical social worker).
"I got a lot out of my residency training, but the MI that you taught has been most important to my medical practice."
(primary care physician)
"Your MI workshop was one of our most highly rated." (addiction medicine organization)
"Dr. Abramowitz did an excellent job. The environment was conducive to putting everyone at ease. It made learning easier." (integrative medicine fellow)

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Meet Sharone Abramowitz MD, our founder

Sharone Abramowitz MD brings an unusual set of skills and great passion to her training and consulting. She is an experienced clinician and behavioral health medical educator. She is a psychotherapist, psychiatrist, and an addiction medicine specialist (including serving as the California Society of Addiction Medicine president). She was also a long-time primary care medicine faculty in a safety-net hospital. She is an integrative health & medicine fellowship graduate and faculty member. She founded the nation's first premedical student health coaching project.

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