Mindfulness-Based Therapies for Substance Use Disorders
Throughout this course, we will explore the underlying principles of mindfulness and their relevance in addiction treatment. You will gain an understanding of how mindfulness practices can cultivate self-awareness, enhance emotional regulation, and foster self-compassion, all of which are essential in the recovery process. We will also delve into the science behind mindfulness-based therapies, examining the compelling evidence supporting their effectiveness in reducing substance cravings, preventing relapse, and promoting overall well-being.
Mindfulness
By the end of this course, you will have acquired a comprehensive understanding of mindfulness-based therapies and their potential to complement and enhance traditional approaches to treating substance use disorders.
Trait mindfulness
As repeated mindfulness practice evokes the state of mindfulness, participants exhibit increases in trait mindfulness over time. Trait mindfulness may be defined as the tendency to exhibit mindful qualities in daily life, including nonreactivity to distressing thoughts and emotions, as well as the tendency to observe and accept one’s momentary thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and sensations.
Non-judgmental, non-reactive, present-centered
Mindfulness can be conceptualized as a state, trait, and practice. The state of mindfulness is cultivated during mindfulness practice and is characterized by a non-judgmental, non-reactive, present-centered attention and metacognitive awareness of cognition, emotion, sensation, and perception
A neurocognitive perspective on the etiology of SUDs
Over time, recurrent substance use results in neuroplastic changes that render natural rewards (eg, food, sex, social interactions) less reinforcing. This desensitization to natural rewards, or “hedonic dysregulation,” leads to a reduced capacity to feel pleasure and reduced motivation to pursue healthful and socially affiliative activities as reward and motivation circuits are hijacked by the drive to seek and consume substances.
Example Curriculum
Interventions are needed to target the manifold processes undergirding substance use disorder and relapse.
Exacerbating this process of addictive automaticity and hedonic dysregulation, chronic substance use also dysregulates key nodes in neural circuits underlying executive functioning, such as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the dorsal and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC). Substance misuse weakens functional connectivity between these cognitive control regions and striatal networks implicated in reward processing and motivation, changes that are associated with blunted positive affect, elevated craving, and higher risk of relapse. Such dysconnectivity between cognitive control and reward systems may thereby contribute to compulsive drug seeking and consumption. Further, chronic substance use also produces maladaptive neuroplasticity in brain stress circuitry (eg, the extended amygdala).
