Hillary Bolter, LCSW, LCAS
Motivational Interviewing Trainer
Hillary Logan, MSW, LCSW, LCAS—formerly professionally known as Hillary Bolter—is a North Carolina clinical social worker, Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist, therapist, consultant, and Motivational Interviewing trainer. She is the founder of MI Center for Change, where she develops experiential education for clinicians, healthcare professionals, coaches, human-service teams, and organizations seeking more effective ways to support behavior change. Her work centers on Motivational Interviewing, addiction treatment, client engagement, collaborative communication, clinician skill development, and organizational implementation.
Hillary’s approach is grounded in the view that motivation is dynamic rather than a fixed characteristic that clients either possess or lack. When a person appears uncertain, discouraged, defensive, or hesitant, she encourages professionals to explore the meaning and function of that ambivalence instead of escalating pressure. Her teaching helps practitioners replace the impulse to fix, persuade, or confront with partnership, accurate empathy, thoughtful guidance, and respect for client autonomy.
Her background in direct practice and professional education allows her to connect Motivational Interviewing theory with the realities of clinical and community work. She has supported people experiencing anxiety, trauma, addiction, co-occurring concerns, and major life transitions, including veterans and families affected by substance use. She also trains professionals working in healthcare, child welfare, criminal justice, community services, faith-based organizations, and programs serving people who are unhoused.
Professional Background
Hillary earned her Master of Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work. Her current professional profiles identify her as a North Carolina Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist. North Carolina’s July 2026 LCSW supervisor roster continues to list her under the surname Bolter in Asheville, while her current MINT and MI Center for Change profiles use Hillary Logan and clarify that she was formerly known as Hillary Bolter.
Her experience spans more than two decades of helping-profession work. Before focusing extensively on training and consultation, she worked in wilderness therapy, community mental health, in-home and school-based services, and direct psychotherapy. Her clinical background includes work related to anxiety, trauma, addiction, co-occurring disabilities, family effects of substance use, life transitions, and military and veteran experiences. This range gives her a practical understanding of the barriers that can interfere with engagement, follow-through, and sustainable change.
In 2011, Hillary joined the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers. Her official MINT profile lists introductory, intermediate, and advanced training, supervision, coaching, coding, group training, and organizational change among her services. It also documents training in the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity and Motivational Interviewing Skill Code systems, which are used to examine whether clinical conversations reflect the spirit, processes, and technical skills of Motivational Interviewing.
Hillary has also served as a national consultant in Motivational Interviewing and Motivational Enhancement Therapy. Her consultation work has included coaching, structured feedback, session review, and MITI coding to help practitioners move beyond conceptual familiarity and develop observable competence. This distinction matters because clinicians can understand MI terminology while still defaulting to advice-giving, repeated questioning, premature planning, or subtle persuasion during difficult conversations.
Through MI Center for Change, Hillary leads professional learning from introductory instruction through advanced practice. The organization provides open-enrollment courses, customized agency training, organizational implementation support, coaching, and continuing education. Its training model emphasizes live practice, demonstration, feedback, reflection, and repeated skill application rather than passive exposure to theory alone.
Areas of Expertise
Motivational Interviewing. Motivational Interviewing is the central focus of Hillary’s professional training. She teaches MI as a purposeful, collaborative way of discussing change and growth—not as a set of clever questions or a softer method of convincing clients to comply. Her instruction addresses partnership, acceptance, compassion, evocation, autonomy support, and the four interconnected tasks of engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning. Clinicians can reinforce these foundations through Clinical Events’ Motivational Interviewing resource and its broader Articles and Resources library.
Ambivalence, Change Talk, and Sustain Talk. Hillary helps professionals listen more precisely to the language clients use when discussing change. Change talk may communicate desire, ability, reasons, need, commitment, activation, or steps toward action. Sustain talk reflects reasons for maintaining the current behavior or concerns about changing. Rather than arguing against sustain talk, clinicians can respond in ways that reduce defensiveness, clarify values, and invite clients to voice their own motivations.
OARS and Reflective Listening. Her training gives particular attention to open questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries. These skills are not presented as a mechanical checklist. Hillary helps learners consider when a complex reflection may deepen understanding, when an affirmation can strengthen self-efficacy, when a summary can organize competing motivations, and when asking another question may unintentionally turn the conversation into an interview controlled by the professional.
Addiction and Co-Occurring Concerns. Hillary’s LCAS credential and addiction-treatment background inform her work with substance use, recovery, relapse risk, and mixed motivation. Clients may recognize serious consequences while also relying on substances for relief, belonging, sleep, avoidance, or emotional regulation. Her training supports conversations that acknowledge both sides of this conflict without using shame or coercion. SAMHSA’s Motivational Interviewing guidance similarly presents motivation as a changeable process and emphasizes collaborative responses to ambivalence.
Healthcare and Chronic-Care Communication. Motivational Interviewing can support conversations about medication, rehabilitation, health behavior, chronic-care self-management, and treatment participation. Hillary’s teaching helps providers avoid assuming that information alone will produce action. Clinical Events’ Motivational Interviewing and Chronic Care resource offers complementary guidance on matching communication strategies to a patient’s readiness while preserving choice and partnership.
Child Welfare, Criminal Justice, and Community Services. Hillary has trained professionals working in Child Protective Services, criminal-justice settings, faith-based programs, community organizations, and services for people experiencing homelessness. These settings often involve external pressure, unequal power, mandated participation, or competing definitions of success. Her work helps professionals remain transparent about their role while creating as much meaningful autonomy and collaboration as the setting permits.
MI Fidelity, Coaching, and Organizational Implementation. Hillary’s knowledge of MITI and MISC coding supports a measurement-informed approach to skill development. Coding, coaching, and recorded-session feedback can reveal patterns that self-assessment misses, including question-heavy exchanges, weak reflections, premature planning, or language that unintentionally favors sustain talk. At the organizational level, she helps agencies consider how supervision, documentation, workflow, leadership, and performance expectations either support or undermine consistent MI practice.
Training and Professional Development. Hillary uses experiential learning, demonstration, practice, and feedback to help professionals integrate MI into their existing roles. Her programs serve beginners as well as experienced learners seeking stronger technical fluency. The objective is not to replace a clinician’s primary treatment model, but to improve how professionals engage clients, exchange information, respond to uncertainty, and support plans that clients are prepared to own.