Free Therapist Training›Motivational Interviewing Toolkit›Progress Note Template
Last updated: November 11, 2026
A motivational interviewing progress note template organizes a session note around what MI attends to: the change the client is considering, the client's own change talk and sustain talk, importance and confidence ratings, the clinician's strategies and the client's plan in the client's words. The template has a SOAP version for settings that require that format, and two completed motivational interviewing progress note examples show it in use: an MI-format note from a counseling session and a motivational interviewing SOAP note from a primary care visit with a nurse health coach.
The template comes from Sentio's free motivational interviewing toolkit, and MI is one of the core therapy models taught in the Sentio MFT program. It pairs with the motivational interviewing treatment plan example, which sets the goals and objectives that later sessions work toward.
This is an optional aid from Sentio's motivational interviewing toolkit, free to adapt to your setting.
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Motivational interviewing progress note
| Item | What to record |
|---|---|
| Client and session details | Client name or initials, clinician, date, session number, length, format (in person, video or phone) and who attended. |
| Change the client chose to discuss | The behavior or decision the client chose to talk about, in the client's own words. |
| Agenda | What the client brought, anything the clinician raised with permission, and the focus the two agreed on. |
| MI task or tasks | The task or tasks the session centered on: engaging, focusing, evoking or planning. Note any shift during the session. |
| Change talk heard | Brief quotes of the client's own statements in favor of change, with the type where useful: desire, ability, reasons, need, commitment, activation or taking steps. |
| Sustain talk and discord heard | Brief quotes of the client's statements in favor of keeping things as they are (sustain talk) and any signs of strain in the working relationship (discord), with how the clinician responded to each. |
| Importance and confidence | The client's 0 to 10 ratings and the reasons the client gave for each number. |
| Stage of change, if your agency records one | The stage your agency's form asks for, with the client's words that support it. MI itself does not require a stage. |
| Clinician strategies | The strategies the clinician used, such as open questions, affirmations, reflections, summaries, information or advice offered with permission, importance and confidence rulers, and exploring values. |
| Client response | How the client responded to those strategies: more or less change talk, new reasons, changed ratings or a shift in engagement. |
| Plan or next steps | What the client decided, in the client's words, including "no decision yet," and anything the clinician agreed to do. |
| Risk and safety | Screening, safety planning and referrals as the setting and the client's situation require. |
| Next session | Date, time, format and the focus the client wants to start with. |
SOAP version
| Item | What to record |
|---|---|
| Client and session details | Client name or initials, clinician, date, session number, length, format (in person, video or phone) and who attended. |
| S (subjective) | The client's account in the client's words: the change discussed, brief quotes of change talk and sustain talk, importance and confidence ratings with the client's reasons, and relevant events since the last session. |
| O (objective) | What the clinician observed or measured: engagement, affect, any signs of discord, and data such as screening scores, vital signs, lab results or logs the client brought. |
| A (assessment) | The clinician's reading of the session in MI terms: the task the session centered on, the strategies used and how the client responded, the balance of change talk and sustain talk, and what this suggests for the next session. |
| P (plan) | The client's next steps in the client's words, or "no decision yet," what the clinician will do next, referrals and safety steps as needed, and the next session. |
What Does a Completed Motivational Interviewing Progress Note Look Like?
Two fictional examples show the template in use: an MI-format note for Marcus, 46, at his third counseling session about his evening drinking, and a SOAP note for Linda, 61, who has type 2 diabetes and sees a nurse health coach at her primary care clinic.
Example 1: MI-format note, Marcus, session 3
| Item | Note |
|---|---|
| Client and session details | Marcus, 46. Counselor: D.O. Session 3, November 17, 2026, 50 minutes, in person, individual. |
| Change the client chose to discuss | His evening drinking: "I want to get back in control. I'm just not sure that means never having another beer." |
| Agenda | Marcus brought his drink log (filled in 6 of 7 days) and wanted to talk about Saturday, when he drank more than he planned at his brother's house. D.O. asked to save time at the end for the job search goal, and Marcus agreed. |
| MI task or tasks | Evoking for most of the session, moving briefly into planning in the last 10 minutes when Marcus raised trying weeknights without alcohol. |
| Change talk heard | Reasons: "I sleep terrible after the third or fourth one." Taking steps: "I skipped Tuesday and Wednesday and went to bed early." Ability: "If I can do two nights, I can probably do four." Need: "Saturday showed me something has to change." Activation: "I'm willing to try weeknights." |
| Sustain talk and discord heard | Sustain talk: "Saturdays with my brother are the one thing I look forward to," and "Quitting completely seems extreme." D.O. responded with a double-sided reflection ("Saturdays with your brother matter a lot, and they're also when the drinking gets away from you"), and Marcus said, "That's exactly it." Discord: when D.O. mentioned his wife's worry, Marcus said, "Now you sound like her." D.O. reflected his frustration at being told what to do and said the decision was his; Marcus nodded and went back to the log. |
| Importance and confidence | Importance 7 (6 at intake): "Seeing the numbers on my phone made it real." Confidence 5 (4 at intake): "I did two nights without, so it's not impossible." |
| Clinician strategies | Questions about the log; an affirmation of his effort in keeping it most days; complex reflections, including the double-sided reflection above; importance and confidence rulers, each followed by asking why he chose that number and not a lower one; information about alcohol and sleep, offered with permission (Ask-Offer-Ask); a closing summary of his change talk, then "Where does that leave you?" |
| Client response | Change talk increased after the double-sided reflection and the ruler follow-ups. The discord eased once D.O. emphasized Marcus's choice. Marcus proposed weeknights as a starting point on his own. |
| Plan or next steps | "I'll try no drinking Monday through Thursday until our next session, and I'll keep logging." No decision yet about weekends: "Let me see how the weeknights go first." He will think about whether to tell his wife. Time ran short, so at his request the job search check-in moves to session 4. |
| Risk and safety | No new safety concerns. Asked about withdrawal symptoms on the nights without alcohol; Marcus reported none. |
| Next session | November 24, 2026, 4:00 p.m., in person. Marcus wants to start with how the weeknights went. |
Example 2: SOAP note, Linda, health coaching visit 2
| Item | Note |
|---|---|
| Client and session details | Linda, 61, type 2 diabetes. Nurse health coach: K.T. Health coaching visit 2, November 12, 2026, 30 minutes, in person, primary care clinic. |
| S | Linda wants to "get my sugar under control" and is weighing two changes: walking after dinner and taking her evening medication regularly. She misses the evening dose "three or four nights a week, when I fall asleep on the couch." Change talk: "I want to be around for my granddaughter" (reasons); "I can walk, my knees are fine on flat ground" (ability); "I'd like to walk with my neighbor again, like we used to" (desire). Sustain talk: "After dinner I'm wiped out, and it's dark by six." Importance 8: "My numbers keep creeping up." Confidence 4: "I always start strong and quit after a week," and not lower "because I walked every day on vacation in September." |
| O | Alert and engaged; laughed while describing walks with her neighbor; no signs of discord. Brought her pill organizer: four of the past seven evening compartments still full. Most recent A1C (October 2026, from the chart): 8.1%, up from 7.6% in May. |
| A | The visit moved from focusing (Linda weighed the two changes and chose to work on both) to evoking, and into planning near the end. Change talk outweighed sustain talk, which centered on fatigue and early darkness. K.T. used open questions, reflections, both rulers with follow-up questions and a summary; Linda's change talk moved from preparatory (desire, ability, reasons) to mobilizing as she began planning on her own. High importance with low confidence points to confidence as the main barrier, so the plan builds on small steps and her past success with walking. Next visit: review the first week and explore options for evenings when her neighbor cannot walk. |
| P | Linda's plan: "I'll set an alarm for 8:30 and keep the pill box by the TV remote," and "I'll ask my neighbor if I can walk her dog with her after dinner, Monday, Wednesday and Friday." Confidence in this plan: 7. K.T. offered, with permission, information about the clinic's diabetes education class; Linda will decide after the holidays. K.T. will call on November 19, as Linda agreed. Next visit November 24, 2026. |
What Should a Motivational Interviewing Note Template Record?
A motivational interviewing note template records the client's side of the conversation as carefully as the clinician's: the change under discussion, the client's change talk and sustain talk in brief quotes, the importance and confidence ratings with the client's reasons, the strategies the clinician used and how the client responded, and the plan in the client's words. Each item answers a practical question for the next reader, whether that is the same clinician a week later, a supervisor reviewing the case or a colleague covering a session.
Change talk and sustain talk are worth recording side by side because research on MI points to the balance between them. In a meta-analysis of 36 studies, Magill et al. (2018) found that clinicians' MI-consistent skills were associated with more change talk (and also with more sustain talk), that a higher proportion of change talk was associated with less risk behavior at follow-up, and that sustain talk was associated with worse outcomes; change talk counted on its own did not predict outcomes. Amrhein et al. (2003) found that the strength of clients' commitment language while they evaluated a change plan in an MI session predicted the proportion of days they were abstinent from drugs at follow-up, and that the strength of their desire, ability, need and reasons language predicted the strength of that commitment. The associations are modest, but they make the client's own words worth tracking from one session to the next, and they give a supervisor a quick view of whether a session drew out more change talk or more sustain talk.
The MI task is worth naming for a related reason. The fourth edition of Miller and Rollnick's text calls engaging, focusing, evoking and planning the four tasks of MI (Miller & Rollnick, 2023), and although the tasks follow a logical order, in practice a conversation moves among them flexibly (Miller, 2023). A note that says "evoking, moving briefly into planning" tells the next reader where to begin, and a note that records a return to engaging after discord explains why a planned topic waited.
How Do You Write a Motivational Interviewing SOAP Note?
A motivational interviewing SOAP note keeps the four standard sections and fills each one with MI content. SOAP stands for subjective, objective, assessment and plan: what the patient reports, what can be observed or measured, the clinician's synthesis of the two, and the next steps (Podder et al., 2023). The format grew out of the problem-oriented medical record that Lawrence Weed described in the 1960s (Podder et al., 2023; Weed, 1968).
- S (subjective). S holds the client's account, with brief quotes of change talk and sustain talk and the reasons the client gave for each ruler rating. Quotes belong in S because S is the client's report.
- O (objective). O records what the clinician saw or measured: engagement, affect, signs of discord, and data such as a pill count, a drink log or a lab result.
- A (assessment). A gives the clinician's reading of the session in MI terms: the task the session centered on, the strategies used and how the client responded, the balance of change talk and sustain talk, and what that suggests for the next session.
- P (plan). P lists the client's next steps in the client's words, or "no decision yet," along with the clinician's follow-up, any referrals and the next appointment.
The assessment is where an MI SOAP note differs most from a general one. "Change talk outweighed sustain talk, and importance was higher than confidence" is an assessment that points to the next session's work, while "patient is motivated" is a label that leaves the next clinician guessing. If your agency records interventions in a separate section, move the strategies there and keep the client's response beside them.
What Language Fits an MI Progress Note?
Language that fits MI describes what the client said and did and leaves out labels. A brief quote or a plain description is more accurate than a label and more useful to the next reader, and it matches how MI itself describes ambivalence: the third edition of Miller and Rollnick's text set aside the term resistance, which seemed to blame the client, and divided it into sustain talk, which concerns the change, and discord, which concerns the working relationship (Miller, 2023).
| Instead of a label | Record what happened |
|---|---|
| "Unmotivated" | Rated importance 3: "My doctor's the one who's worried." |
| "In denial about his drinking" | "It's not wrecking my life, but it's more than I want." Importance 6. |
| "Poor medication adherence" | Misses the evening dose three or four nights a week, "when I fall asleep on the couch." |
| "Argumentative in session" | When the counselor mentioned his wife's worry, said, "Now you sound like her." Counselor reflected his frustration and emphasized his choice; he returned to the topic. |
| "Agreed to cut down" | "I'll try no drinking Monday through Thursday until our next session." |
| "Denies withdrawal symptoms" | Reported no withdrawal symptoms on the nights without alcohol. |
Person-first wording follows the same logic. In a randomized study of mental health clinicians, Kelly and Westerhoff (2010) found that those who read a vignette describing a "substance abuser" judged the person more to blame and more deserving of punishment than those who read an identical vignette describing a person with a substance use disorder. Describe the clinician's part just as plainly: "Used a double-sided reflection about Saturdays; client said, 'That's exactly it'" tells a supervisor which skill was used and what followed.
Practice the Skill Behind This Template
The skill behind a useful MI note is hearing change talk as the client says it and responding to it in the moment, because a note can record only what the clinician noticed. Rehearse it with the motivational interviewing practice scenarios, watch Episode 8 on Practice Time, and use the exercises in Deliberate Practice in Motivational Interviewing (Manuel et al., 2022).
Keep reading
Motivational Interviewing Treatment Plan Example, goals in the client's words with measurable objectives and a completed 12-week plan.
Readiness Ruler Worksheet, importance and confidence rulers with the follow-up questions that draw out change talk.
Motivational Interviewing Cheat Sheet, OARS, the types of change talk and responses to sustain talk and discord on one page.
Motivational Interviewing Fidelity Checklist, a recording review form for supervisors and for self-review.
Free Motivational Interviewing Toolkit, every template in the set, each with a completed example and a PDF.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you document change talk in motivational interviewing progress notes?
Quote the client briefly and add the type where it helps: desire, ability, reasons, need, commitment, activation or taking steps. Record sustain talk the same way, so the note shows the balance between the two. A line such as "Reasons: 'I sleep terrible after the third or fourth one'" tells the next reader more than "client expressed motivation."
What is a SOAP note, and what goes in a motivational interviewing SOAP note?
A SOAP note has four sections: subjective, objective, assessment and plan. The format comes from Lawrence Weed's problem-oriented medical record (Podder et al., 2023; Weed, 1968). In a motivational interviewing SOAP note, S holds the client's words and ratings, O holds what the clinician observed and measured, A holds the clinician's reading of the session in MI terms, and P holds the client's next steps in the client's words.
Should a motivational interviewing note template include a stage of change?
MI does not require one. TIP 35 notes that MI and the stages of change model developed around the same time and are often confused, but neither is an essential part of the other, though the two are compatible; TIP 35 itself organizes its guidance by stage (SAMHSA, 2019). If your setting records a stage, add it beside the client's quotes and ratings, which show more precisely where the client stands.
How long should an MI progress note be?
An MI progress note should be long enough to show the change discussed, a few brief quotes, the ratings, the main strategies and the client's plan, and no longer. Most items need only a line or two. Follow your agency's rules on required elements, and leave out detail the next reader will not need.
Should you quote the client in a progress note?
A brief quote is worth including. It preserves the client's own reasons and commitments, which are the language MI attends to, and it is more accurate than a paraphrase or a label. Keep quotes to a sentence, choose ones that bear on the change, and write the note so the client could read it without feeling judged.
References
Amrhein, P. C., Miller, W. R., Yahne, C. E., Palmer, M., & Fulcher, L. (2003). Client commitment language during motivational interviewing predicts drug use outcomes. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 71(5), 862-878. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.71.5.862
Kelly, J. F., & Westerhoff, C. M. (2010). Does it matter how we refer to individuals with substance-related conditions? A randomized study of two commonly used terms. International Journal of Drug Policy, 21(3), 202-207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2009.10.010
Magill, M., Apodaca, T. R., Borsari, B., Gaume, J., Hoadley, A., Gordon, R. E. F., Tonigan, J. S., & Moyers, T. (2018). A meta-analysis of motivational interviewing process: Technical, relational, and conditional process models of change. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 86(2), 140-157. https://doi.org/10.1037/ccp0000250
Manuel, J. K., Ernst, D., Vaz, A., & Rousmaniere, T. (2022). Deliberate practice in motivational interviewing. American Psychological Association. ISBN 978-1-4338-3618-3. https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/deliberate-practice-motivational-interviewing
Miller, W. R. (2023). The evolution of motivational interviewing. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 51(6), 616-632. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352465822000431
Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2023). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change and grow (4th ed.). Guilford Press. ISBN 978-1-4625-5279-5. https://www.guilford.com/books/Motivational-Interviewing/Miller-Rollnick/9781462552795
Podder, V., Lew, V., & Ghassemzadeh, S. (2023). SOAP notes. In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482263/
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2019). Enhancing motivation for change in substance use disorder treatment (Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series No. 35, SAMHSA Publication No. PEP19-02-01-003). https://library.samhsa.gov/product/tip-35-enhancing-motivation-change-substance-use-disorder-treatment/pep19-02-01-003
Weed, L. L. (1968). Medical records that guide and teach. New England Journal of Medicine, 278(11), 593-600. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM196803142781105
