Journal
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 12, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.649409
Keywords
cue exposure; mindfulness; extinction; substance use disorder; treatment
Categories
Funding
- National Cancer Institute (NCI) [T32CA090314]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Despite the poor efficacy of extinction-based processes for substance use disorders (SUD), such as cue exposure treatment (CET), recent research on mindfulness has shown promise. Mindfulness-based interventions teach individuals to stay present with their experiences without trying to change or escape them, similar to CET's approach of not avoiding conditioned responses like craving. This paper discusses how integrating mindfulness practices could enhance CET's effectiveness in SUD treatment.
Despite extinction-based processes demonstrating efficacy in the animal extinction and human anxiety literatures, extinction for substance use disorders (SUD) has shown poor efficacy (i. e., cue exposure treatment [CET]). Reasons for this lack of success include common threats to extinction, such as renewal and reinstatement. In recent decades, research on mindfulness for SUD has flourished, and a key aspect of these mindfulness-based interventions includes teaching individuals to stay present with whatever experience they have, even if unpleasant, without trying to change/escape/avoid it. Similarly, CET teaches individuals to not escape/avoid conditioned responses (e.g., craving) by engaging in drug use behavior. This paper discusses how mindfulness-based research and practices could positively influence CET through future research (e.g., Could mindfulness practice attenuate renewal? Might mindfulness training + CET enhance the ability to extinguish the most salient or motivational cues?), with the long-term goal of improving SUD treatment.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available