Angie Wood, PhD, LCSW

Motivational Interviewing Trainer

Angie Wood, PhD, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker, Board-Approved Clinical Supervisor, author, university educator, consultant, and Motivational Interviewing trainer. Her work helps behavioral health, healthcare, addiction-treatment, and human-service professionals develop more collaborative conversations about change. Rather than treating client hesitation as resistance that must be overcome, she teaches practitioners to approach ambivalence with curiosity, accurate empathy, and respect for personal autonomy.

Dr. Wood’s professional perspective connects direct social work practice with university teaching, field education, clinical supervision, and workforce development. She is especially interested in how communication affects engagement when clients feel uncertain, discouraged, defensive, or divided about a difficult decision. Her instruction emphasizes practical skills that clinicians can use to build trust, recognize change language, reduce unproductive confrontation, and help clients identify personally meaningful reasons for taking action.

As an author and educator, Dr. Wood also makes Motivational Interviewing accessible beyond formal clinical settings. Her book, The Motivational Interviewing Workbook: Exercises to Decide What You Want and How to Get There, applies Motivational Interviewing principles to goal clarification, decision-making, planning, and sustainable personal change. This combination of clinical knowledge, academic leadership, and skills-based teaching makes her programs relevant to social workers, counselors, psychologists, addiction professionals, healthcare providers, supervisors, and other helping professionals.

Professional Background

Angela “Angie” Wood earned her Master of Social Work from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and her PhD in social work from Tulane University. She is identified professionally as a Louisiana licensed clinical social worker and holds the LCSW-BACS designation, recognizing her as a Board-Approved Clinical Supervisor. Her publisher biography also identifies her as a Certified Clinical Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Social Worker.

Dr. Wood currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Social Work and Field Director for the Bachelor of Social Work and Master of Social Work programs in the Department of Applied Human Sciences at Southeastern Louisiana University. Her university work connects classroom instruction, field education, professional preparation, and the practical application of social work knowledge. Additional information about her academic role is available through her official Southeastern Louisiana University faculty profile.

Her responsibilities as a field director are closely connected to her interest in clinical communication and professional development. Field education requires social work students to integrate ethics, professional self-awareness, supervision, documentation, client engagement, and evidence-informed intervention within real service environments. Motivational Interviewing offers a valuable framework for this development because it encourages practitioners to listen carefully, collaborate on goals, and respond to uncertainty without relying on pressure or judgment.

Dr. Wood is also listed in the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers directory. MINT is an international professional organization for individuals who teach, practice, study, and advance Motivational Interviewing. Her listing confirms her professional connection to the organization and her work as a Motivational Interviewing trainer based in Louisiana.

Her combined experience in direct practice, social work education, field leadership, clinical supervision, consultation, and training gives her a broad understanding of the environments in which conversations about change occur. These environments may include behavioral health programs, addiction services, healthcare organizations, universities, community agencies, supervision settings, and interdisciplinary care teams.

Areas of Expertise

Motivational Interviewing. Motivational Interviewing is the central focus of Dr. Wood’s teaching and professional training. She presents it as a collaborative, person-centered approach to conversations about change rather than a script for convincing clients to accept a professional’s preferred outcome. Her instruction helps practitioners understand how partnership, acceptance, compassion, and evocation influence the quality of clinical engagement. Clinicians can complement this learning with Clinical Events’ downloadable Motivational Interviewing resource, which provides further background on the model and its use in behavioral health and substance-use settings.

Ambivalence and Readiness for Change. Clients frequently hold competing reasons for changing and remaining the same. A person may want to reduce substance use while fearing the loss of a familiar coping strategy. Another client may understand the potential benefits of following a healthcare plan while doubting their ability to maintain it. Dr. Wood helps professionals listen for both sides of this conflict, avoid escalating defensiveness, and create room for clients to voice their own values, concerns, hopes, and reasons for change.

Reflective Listening and Accurate Empathy. Reflective listening involves more than repeating a client’s words. It requires the practitioner to test an understanding of the client’s meaning, emotion, perspective, values, and intention while remaining open to correction. Dr. Wood’s training emphasizes the purposeful use of open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries to strengthen engagement. These skills can help professionals slow down difficult conversations, repair misunderstandings, and communicate respect even when a client is not ready to take immediate action.

Change Talk and Sustainable Behavior Change. Dr. Wood teaches practitioners to recognize language that reflects desire, ability, reasons, need, commitment, or movement toward change. Instead of supplying motivation from outside the client, the professional listens for and strengthens the client’s own arguments for change. This approach can be applied in mental health care, addiction services, chronic-care management, health behavior, supervision, and social-service practice. Clinical Events’ Motivational Interviewing and Chronic Care resource provides a related application for professionals supporting clients with ongoing health-management needs.

Substance Use and Addiction Practice. Dr. Wood’s professional credentials and training background include work related to alcohol, tobacco, and other drug concerns. Motivational Interviewing is especially relevant in addiction practice because people may enter treatment with mixed feelings, external pressure, previous unsuccessful attempts, or uncertainty about the changes they are prepared to make. Her approach encourages clinicians to maintain appropriate accountability while avoiding shame, argument, labeling, and premature advice-giving.

Clinical Supervision. As a Board-Approved Clinical Supervisor and university field director, Dr. Wood brings Motivational Interviewing principles into supervision and professional development. Supervisors can use collaborative goal-setting, reflective listening, strengths-based feedback, and autonomy-supportive questions to help clinicians examine uncertainty and improve their practice. This approach does not remove a supervisor’s evaluative or ethical responsibilities. Instead, it can create a more transparent and productive process for discussing performance, confidence, professional judgment, and areas for growth.

Social Work Education and Field Learning. Dr. Wood’s academic role places her at the intersection of professional education and real-world practice. She supports the preparation of students who must learn to translate social work values, ethical responsibilities, communication skills, and theoretical knowledge into effective behavior across agencies and client populations. Her work is relevant to educators, supervisors, and field instructors seeking practical methods for strengthening student engagement, reflective practice, and clinical skill development.

Healthcare and Chronic-Care Communication. Behavior change is often central to chronic-care management, treatment participation, medication adherence, health-risk reduction, and lifestyle decisions. Dr. Wood’s work helps providers move away from communication that is primarily directive or corrective and toward conversations that explore the client’s priorities, concerns, values, and confidence. This approach can strengthen shared decision-making while recognizing that clients retain control over their choices.

Training, Consultation, and Professional Skill Development. Motivational Interviewing competence develops through practice, observation, feedback, and continued refinement. Dr. Wood’s training supports professionals who want to move beyond memorizing isolated techniques and understand how the spirit, processes, and communication skills of Motivational Interviewing work together. Clinicians can also explore the Clinical Events Articles and Resources library for additional professional materials related to Motivational Interviewing, ethics, mindfulness, anxiety, and evidence-informed behavioral healthcare.

Authored Publications

• The Motivational Interviewing Workbook: Exercises to Decide What You Want and How to Get There