An episode of Changing the Conversation podcast.
How are Motivational Interviewing (MI) and Peer Support so well aligned? Peer advocate Kris Kelly and host Ali Hall consider the foundational components of autonomy, empathy, and more in this episode.
March 2, 2026
[Music]
Ali Hall (Host) (00:05): Hello, and welcome to Changing the Conversation. I’m your host today, Ali Hall, joining from San Francisco, California. Our topic is integrating motivational interviewing or MI for peer support workers. And my guest today is Kris Kelly with the Great Lakes Addiction Technology Transfer Center, or ATTC, a new member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers or MINT, joining us today from St. Paul, Minnesota. Welcome, Kris.
Kris Kelly (Guest) (00:34): Thanks, Ali. I’m super excited to be here.
Ali Hall (00:37): And I am, too. So how did you come to this work?
Kris Kelly (00:41): In 2013, I left a long career in the hospitality industry to take a peer support training. I’m a person with lived experience overcoming substance use challenges, and a friend of a friend told me about these cool things called Recovery Community Organizations (RCOs). And I’d been looking for community in my recovery. And like, where do all these people exist? Because, I hadn’t taken a traditional 12-step pathway. I was just like living my life in recovery. How do I connect with other people?
(01:15):
And when I went to the Recovery Community Organization (RCO), I learned about a Recovery Coach Academy, which is Minnesota’s name for the peer support training. I took that weeklong course, and I was just sold on the whole thing. I was like, “Oh, my gosh, this is genuinely how we can support people when they’re thinking about recovery, when they are in recovery, but maybe just not feeling really connected.”
(01:42):
I just knew that was the way. And over time, I became the facilitator of that training. Ad then I built programs within the RCO and eventually was executive director. And then I left that work to come to the Great Lakes ATTC and do more systems-level work. So, I started thinking about, “How can I support these recovery community organizations from a different angle at the systems level?”
Ali Hall (02:08): Fantastic. Your soul was calling and you picked up the phone.
Kris Kelly (02:12): Yes.
Ali Hall (02:13): Right. And so then, you came upon MI. That’s a journey in and of itself, I’m guessing. But how is it from your point of view that peer support and MI are so well aligned?
Kris Kelly (02:24): Yeah, so when I joined the ATTC in 2018, I got to meet my colleague, Laura Saunders, who’s just one of the MI gurus I would say, in this world. So, I was really fortunate to land where I did. I had taken just four or five hours of MI training in our recovery coach academy, and so I was able to facilitate at that level. But she took me and just cracked open this world that I didn’t really know existed. And so, it just became more and more evident, that philosophical alignment you talked about. So, MI, obviously, we have this partnership, acceptance, compassion, empowerment. And then, you look at peer support, the core values in peer support like mutuality and respect and empathy and sharing power. And to me, those two things are so philosophically aligned that Motivational Interviewing seems like a super natural thing for peer supporters to learn more about.
Ali Hall (03:21): That really makes sense. And definitely a shout-out to Laura, who is a bright light for many of us. So fantastic, that that’s who you happen to come upon-
Kris Kelly (03:29): Yeah. Lucky me.
Ali Hall (03:32): … in this journey, right? I know. Yeah. And that alignment you talk about is so incredibly vital. That’s the humility that we bring to our work in MI, the prioritization of partnership to really approach others with acceptance, to be compassionate and prioritizing their needs, and to believe that they have the empowerment in and of themselves already is our job to help them find it in a way when we’re serving others. Embedded in MI are principles of autonomy support, self-determination, emphasizing the expertise that others have in their own life. How has that played out in your work?
Kris Kelly (04:06): So, both, again, we kind of go back to those foundational components. So, in addition to that autonomy and self-determination being present and motivational interviewing and something we emphasize in our trainings in peer support, we emphasize also that that person is the expert in their own lives. So always reminding folks participating in a training or learning to be peer supporters, that change isn’t something we impose on another, it’s something we support.
(04:37):
So, it goes to that, we’re someone’s guide. We link up with them, and we figure out what’s going on in their life, what are ideas they have about things they could do that might make their life a little bit better? And then how can we be in relationship with them to support those changes that they identified? So, it’s really important I think in both, but I know from the peer support lens, it’s really essential that we always ensure that the power is in that other person’s hands, that the person we’re supporting holds those keys to change.
Ali Hall (05:12):
That makes sense. It really is the person’s choice whether and when and how. And with a good guide, their decision-making processes are supported in that. I think we come upon folks maybe in a really difficult chapter or difficult season of their lives, and it’s tempting to view the person then as really not having the strength to do this or really not having the expertise to do this. And MI brings the exact opposite lens, that people do have what they need and we can help them move in that direction despite the difficult chapter. And maybe that’s where people need us the most.
Kris Kelly (05:41): Yeah.
Ali Hall (05:41): So, when we think about being strengths-based in MI, it sounds like, too with peer support, because it’s not about what’s wrong. So how do you help folks really align with the strengths-based approach that MI really is, and peer support is also?
Kris Kelly (05:55): And you mentioned it just a moment ago that idea, sometimes self-stigma is overlooked. So oftentimes in the peer support field, we’re working with an individual that brings a lot of self-stigma and a lot of personal shame about what happened in their active addiction. And so, we need to remind people that, “Today as you are, you are enough. You deserve to be here; you deserve all the support and help. You deserve all the love. You deserve all of this, and you don’t have to do anything to earn it.” And we need to verbalize those things to people and then help them to identify those things about themselves.
(06:32):
We sometimes joke in training, but sometimes skills you build in your active addiction are actually useful in your recovery process. I know in my active addiction, I learned to kind of hustle a little bit, and that has benefited me in my post-addiction life. And sometimes we just need to help remind them of those things, like they’re this deep well of knowledge and expertise and goodness, and kind of poke holes in that dark cloud that maybe they’re walking into the room with and bring some light.
(07:04):
Like you said, I think we help people in both fields, but peer support, we help people recognize what’s working in their lives. So again, like you said, start from that place of what’s right with you, not what’s wrong with you, and then build from there. And it’s not to say we ignore the problems, but if we can start with what’s right with you, it kind of opens up our mindset, and it helps us reframe challenges, and see that we actually do have the skills and determination to overcome obstacles.
Ali Hall (07:35): Translatable and transferable skills, certainly a capacity and expertise that folks walk in the door with. They’re helping move those into prosocial directions that the person might be wanting to take on now. I think, too, about values and some of the underlying values when we might be serving substance use, alcohol, whatever it is that we find ourselves trapped in for the moment that some of those very same values are excellent ones. And we may be able to find other behaviors that serve those really deep human values.
(08:04):
I would think it goes back, too, to that idea of not, “What’s the matter with you?” But “What matters to you?” And helping people tap into that. And I feel it from you that you’re bringing a level of empathy and acceptance to the work, not only in terms of serving folks, but also training or facilitating training for peer support. Say more about empathy and acceptance.
Kris Kelly (08:28): I’ve been really chewing on this one a lot lately, listening to a lot of different podcasts about empathy. And I think empathy comes naturally to peer supporters and sometimes it’s almost to a fault. So, I heard it termed as enmeshment versus empathy. So, enmeshment is, “I don’t know where I end and you begin, I am in the dark hole with you.” And sometimes it’s hard to support someone when you climb down into the dark hole.
(09:00):
And then we have on the other side, empathy. “I can understand what you’re going through, and I’m going to voice this. I believe what you’re telling me about what you’re going through…” And maybe I add some words to it. And yet, I’m going to use compassion, so I’m going to use compassion alongside that empathy to help discover a way to not be here anymore. We practice deep listening and we walk alongside someone without trying to fix them. And I feel like those are both at the heart of MI and peer support.
(09:35):
And then in the peer support field, I just think we have to be cautious to not let it go into enmeshment. When I was supervising peers, they’re paid an hourly wage to serve this role. And that’s not… I’m not making a generalized statement. Some peer support is informal, and it happens just in community. So, I’m more talking about a paid, professional role within an organization. But people would take phone calls at 1:00 A.M., 3:00 A.M., work outside of their paid hours.
(10:05):
And I won’t call that wrong. I also want people to make sure their cup is full, and that they aren’t providing necessarily crisis management and crisis support 24/7, because in your paid role, you’re not trained to do that, and you’re not paid to do that. And you’re going to burn out so quick if you just let the enmeshment take over. Like, “Oh, I have to solve this, and I have to be the hero to this person’s story.”
(10:35):
Sometimes I frame it as, we’re teaching people to be heroes of their own stories. Think back to what you needed, that level of empathy. Think back to what it was like when you’re in those shoes and then what things did you need to hear, and how did you need someone to be with you in order to see that you had the power to make change in your life?
Ali Hall (10:58): We can walk together with someone, whether it’s a half step ahead, half step behind or literally right alongside. We just can’t put everybody on our back and carry them where we think they should go or even where they want to go. Standing alongside someone perhaps and supporting and hearing and understanding without jumping into the quicksand, which I imagine would be tough at times, particularly compassionate people are drawn into this work. And it would be very straightforward to just feel a sense of pain to be with someone and hearing the pain that they’re in.
(11:29):
We certainly want the provider or the support that we’re working with, we want genuineness. We want to know the people that are real. On the other hand, there’s maybe a boundary thing around self-disclosure, and you said enmeshment, and over identifying with the challenges that someone is facing. Where compassion is wonderful to be able to prioritize and sit with someone in their suffering, and at the same time, there can be a judgment about, “This is how you should go about solving this. This is how I did it. This is what I know works. Don’t do that. You should try this instead.”
(12:01):
And then we just kind of lost our whole MI compass, and I’m guessing, could end up being not particularly helpful. So, what about the role of self-disclosure? And what happens when we feel ourselves over-identifying really with the struggle that the person is facing?
Kris Kelly (12:16): Yeah, there’s so much there to peel apart Ali. So, when I think about self… And this is a journey, again, journey I’ve been on of understanding peer support on different levels and layers. And I think it’s progressed as I’ve progressed in my own recovery pathway. And I think of self-disclosure almost as seasoning, like salt and pepper. There’re times you want it, times you don’t. We definitely don’t want it to be the whole meal. We don’t want just a meal covered in salt and pepper and yuck. That wouldn’t be good. The foundation is that our lived experience is kind of the primary qualification of peer support. And so, we know that’s kind of what got us through the door, why we’re qualified to go through the training, and then why we’re qualified to provide that support.
(13:08):
Where we want to again, be kind of cautious is in sharing that self-disclosure. Personally, I never want to come into a situation and, “Hi, I’m Kris, and here’s my recovery, and here’s how it all unfolded.” And even without saying, “and you should do it this way, too,” that’s the quiet part.
(13:27):
I’m almost saying that when I tell someone my recovery, my entire how I got into recovery. I’m kind of telling them, “Oh, well, here’s the right way to do it.”
(13:37):
And so, again, we want to go back to that. We want to do a lot of deep listening, and the part of our lived experience we want to use is that lived experience of being in that person’s seat at one point in time, and what would’ve been helpful to hear, and what would’ve been helpful to know. And then, things like Motivational Interviewing, teach us these cool skills, like ask, offer, ask. “Hey, I know some things about it. This, what you’re talking about. Would it be okay if I shared some information with you?”
(14:07):
And then you offer up that information and then you get to ask, “What do you make of that?” So, to me, that’s a way to frame your self-disclosure without unintentionally making it directive or kind of quietly saying, “But this is really how you should do it, because it’s what worked for me.” Does that make sense?
Ali Hall (14:28): Yeah, yeah, it really does. And said like a true chef. We sometimes think about affirmations as sprinkling a bit of sugar around. We don’t dump a cup or a pound where really a sprinkle would do. So, I like the seasoning thing going on there. When you bring up, Ask-Offer-Ask, which makes so much sense, which is with permission, which seeks collaboration, which emphasizes the person’s autonomy, which is essentially a structured, turn-taking to find out what the person knows, what they would like to know. “May I share some ideas with you that you might find helpful, and that you have what it takes to make use of this or not, and you can tell me what makes sense of this.”
(15:05):
That’s the underlying, profound belief in the person that those things are true for them. I also like the idea with Ask-Offer-Ask that, as with MI, there are a lot of right ways to do this. There are lots of paths and lots of doors and lots of avenues, and, “I may have taken this one and that might’ve worked for me. And the one that’s going to work for you is out there, too. And together, we can find that.” That would really save someone in a situation where they’re tempted to prescribe or direct or define the path for the person or narrow the space that the person might walk through.
Kris Kelly (15:40): Yeah. And we know that comes from people’s big giant hearts, and we want to alleviate someone else’s suffering or their pain or the discomfort that we’re seeing them in. That’s another part of peer support training that I really like to offer, is this idea of getting super cozy with sitting with other people’s discomfort or pain. Because it’s not our job to alleviate it. But by being there, again, that compassion comes up. And you’re not alone in this. I know the biggest changes I’ve made in my life have been at moments where I had to sit in discomfort for a little bit, and it helped me to kind of figure out like, “Oh, what is the path forward?” And it was even better when I had either formal or informal versions of peer support around to sit with me and say, “Hey, no, there’s a light at the end of this tunnel. Let’s keep going.”
Ali Hall (16:34): Yeah. And it really is pointing the lantern toward the hope that is there in helping the person feel that someone believes in them, not for what they don’t have, but for what they already have.
(16:45):
It feels like, too, the expert hat, we can really get out of that thing by taking our well-intended urges to be helpful, “I’d really like to be helpful here, and I trust that you can tell me what that looks like,” as a reminder for the person, but also for ourselves, to get out of the way and trust the expertise and the strength of the person.
Kris Kelly (17:04): Well, and that’s something I loved learning in Motivational Interviewing was being vocal about people’s autonomy. We might think it, or even just, again, you might assume someone knows. Well, of course, you can decide what to do. You’re your own person. But something Motivational Interviewing has really taught me is how I can be vocal so many times and say, “And it’s up to you. And you get to decide what comes next and how important that is.” And it goes back to that alignment, right, that autonomy is a part of both peer support and Motivational Interviewing.
Ali Hall (17:42): It really does, because we’re more than the deeds that we feel most upset or ashamed even about in our lives. And we’re really talking about believing in the doer, and the absolute worth of the person and as they find it. So rather than fragilizing or looking at what’s wrong or the mistakes someone has made and being judgmental about that, it sounds like we’re not only believing in the person, but also not grabbing the steering wheel out of their hands. You are doing so many wonderful things in the world as you sit here. What are things you’re currently working on and what are your own hopes for the future?
Kris Kelly (18:16): Oh, so many, Ali. So right now, I’m really looking at how I can create a series of Motivational Interviewing trainings specifically for the peer workforce through my job. So, I’m hoping this spring and summer we’ll see some of those come out through the Great Lakes ATTC. I’m always looking at how can we support the peer support field just in general? How can we help peer supporters across the nation network? I specifically work in region 5, so a variety of states around the Great Lakes, how can we connect? Because again, I think the best things come from the people doing the work. And then, sometimes our job is just to knock down the barriers that get in their way.
(18:58):
And what keeps me hopeful is just the heart of this community is just… It’s kind of unstoppable. And I’m seeing this return back to those grassroots efforts, away from a focus on direct services, grassroots efforts that include advocacy and outreach. And when we say, meeting people where they’re at, we literally mean boots on the ground, “My feet are where you are.” So, we aren’t always asking people to come into our space. We’re going out and meeting people where they live, work, and play. So that’s what’s keeping me hopeful.
Ali Hall (19:35): Beautiful. And to that, I would add, just putting the next pearl on the string. What’s literally right in front of us, and then the next step that feels right for each of us. So, thank you for the good that you do in the world, Kris. And thank you for joining us today.
Kris Kelly (19:49): Thanks so much for having me. I loved it.
Ali Hall (19:52): And to our listeners, please join us next time on Changing the Conversation.
Lee Locke-Hardy (Producer) (19:58): Visit C4Innovates.com and follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube for more resources to grow your impact. Thank you for joining us. This episode was produced by Lee Locke-Hardy and Christina Murphy. Our theme song was written and performed by Peter Hanlon. Join us next time on Changing the Conversation.
Listen to other episodes in the Motivational Interviewing series.