Combining Motivational Interviewing With Cognitive-Behavioral Treatments for Substance Abuse: Lessons From the COMBINE Research Project

Motivational Interviewing began as a treatment for substance misuse and has strong empirical support as an intervention for these disorders. It is very common for MI to be combined with other types of treatment when it is used for substance abuse, and this article focuses on one example of this: the COMBINE Research Project. We examine the Combined Behavioral Intervention (CBI), which integrated MI and cognitive-behavioral strategies as well as several other approaches. The intervention is described and conceptual issues regarding the integration of MI with other treatments is explored.