International Journal of Behavioral Medicine
June 12, 2026
Carter Minnick, Adam W. Hanley, Eric L Garland
BACKGROUND: Spanish-speaking individuals in the U.S. face a number of barriers to quality pain care and limited access to culturally adapted treatments. While mindfulness-based interventions are effective for chronic pain, few have been translated for Spanish-speaking populations. This pilot study tested a brief, Spanish-language adaptation of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (Spanish...
Psychology of Consciousness Theory Research and Practice
May 11, 2026
Kush V. Bhatt, Adam W. Hanley, Chantal Martin-Soelch et al.
Mindfulness-based interventions are efficacious nonpharmacologic treatments for chronic pain, yet the psychological mechanisms mediating the pain-relieving effects of mindfulness-based interventions remain incompletely understood. One potential mechanism may involve nondual awareness, a state of consciousness characterized by attenuation of the subject-object duality, reduced self-referential...
medRxiv Preprint Server
February 23, 2026
Fernando A. Wilson, Eric L Garland
preprint
OBJECTIVE Opioid misuse exacts a tremendous toll on society. Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) is an efficacious treatment for opioid misuse. Yet, the cost-effectiveness of this intervention remains unknown.
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management
January 3, 2026
Karolina L Bryl, Adam W. Hanley, Raymond E Baser et al.
1 citation
Chronic pain affects many cancer survivors yet remains underdiagnosed and inadequately managed. Existing treatments (e.g., opioids, NSAIDs) carry risks like addiction and limited long-term relief, while non-pharmacological options show modest effectiveness. Given these limitations innovative, evidence-based interventions are needed. Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), a multimodal...
Mindfulness
2026
Ryan S Wexler, Wade Balsamo, Devon J Fox et al.
Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) aims to foster adaptive attention and pain reappraisal. While research has demonstrated MORE's efficacy, the progression through which participants modify their relationship to pain remains unclear. To understand this process, we conducted a qualitative study with data from a clinical trial of MORE for patients with lumbosacral radicular pain...
Complementary Therapies in Medicine
December 1, 2025
Adam W. Hanley, Yoshio Nakamura, Robert R Edwards et al.
Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a prevalent chronic pain condition that significantly impairs quality of life and is often treated with interventions that carry risks or provide limited relief. Reiki, a non-invasive complementary therapy, has shown early promise for pain management but lacks rigorous evaluation among American adults with KOA. This study evaluated the specific efficacy of Reiki and...
PLoS Medicine
September 19, 2025
Benjamin R. Lewis, John Hendrick, Kevin Byrne et al.
5 citations
Background Depression and burnout, which are common among healthcare workers, were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and psilocybin have been reported to reduce depressive symptoms, but the efficacy of the combination requires comparison to an active treatment control. We sought to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of psilocybin and MBSR...
Drug and Alcohol Dependence
June 2, 2025
Anna Parisi, Lisa Taylor-Swanson, Jennifer L. Stewart et al.
1 citation
Individuals with substance use disorders often report altered interoceptive awareness of internal bodily signals. However, it is unclear whether these alterations also extend to patients with chronic pain who misuse opioids, and whether interventions that enhance interoceptive awareness, such as mindfulness-based therapies, may reduce opioid misuse in this population. At baseline, participants...
Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging
April 1, 2025
Saampras Ganesan, Fernando A Barrios, Ishaan Batta et al.
6 citations
Meditation is a family of ancient and contemporary contemplative mind-body practices that can modulate psychological processes, awareness, and mental states. Over the last 40 years, clinical science has manualized meditation practices and designed various meditation interventions that have shown therapeutic efficacy for disorders including depression, pain, addiction, and anxiety. Over the past...
medRxiv
2025
Benjamin R. Lewis, John Hendrick, Kevin Byrne et al.
3 citations
preprint
Abstract Objective This clinical trial sought to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of psilocybin and MBSR for frontline healthcare providers with symptoms of depression and burnout related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods This was a randomized controlled trial that enrolled physicians and nurses with frontline clinical work during the COVID-19 pandemic and symptoms of depression and...
International Journal of Wellbeing
October 1, 2024
Michael Dambrun, Adam W. Hanley, Eric L Garland et al.
5 citations
In two randomized controlled trials, we tested the effect of two attentional mindfulness meditation practices on positive mental health. We hypothesized that attentional meditation would increase various positive emotions (gratitude, interest, hope, pride, elevation, and awe) via three processes induced by mindfulness (body awareness, meta-awareness, and self-transcendence) and that positive...
Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine
September 1, 2024
Adam W. Hanley, Ayaka Lingard, Eric L Garland
7 citations
Introduction: Traditional, 8-week, mindfulness-based interventions can effectively treat chronic pain, but require a time and resource investment too burdensome for many patients and providers. The solution to this logistical challenge may be to distill the core, therapeutic elements of an efficacious 8-week, mindfulness-based intervention, Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), into...
British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
July 24, 2024
Eric L Garland
The opioid crisis emerged in part due to the overprescribing of opioid analgesics for chronic pain. Although not the only source of the current epidemic of opioid use disorder (OUD), the prescription of opioids for chronic pain remains one vector for the development of opioid misuse and OUD. However, opioid tapering is not appropriate for all patients, and some patients may need to remain on...
The journal of pain
July 1, 2024
Patrick H. Finan, Carly Hunt, Michael L. Keaser et al.
18 citations
Positive emotions are a promising target for intervention in chronic pain, but mixed findings across trials to date suggest that existing interventions may not be optimized to efficiently engage the target. The aim of the current pilot mechanistic randomized controlled trial was to test the effects of a positive emotion-enhancing intervention called Savoring Meditation on pain-related neural...
World Psychiatry
June 1, 2024
Matthew D. Sacchet, Maurizio Fava, Eric L Garland
35 citations
Modulating self-referential processing through meditation and psychedelics: is scientific investigation of self-transcendence clinically relevant?
JAMA Psychiatry
April 1, 2024
Nina A Cooperman, Shou-En Lu, Adam W. Hanley et al.
39 citations
Methadone treatment (MT) fails to address the emotion dysregulation, pain, and reward processing deficits that often drive opioid use disorder (OUD). New interventions are needed to address these factors. To evaluate the efficacy of MT as usual (usual care) vs telehealth Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) plus usual care among people with an OUD and pain. This study was a...
Behaviour Research and Therapy
April 1, 2024
Eric L Garland, Thupten Jinpa
4 citations
In addition to its health benefits, mindfulness has been theorized in classical contemplative frameworks to elicit self-transcendent experiences as a means of promoting universal love and compassion. Increasing feelings of love may be especially clinically relevant for the treatment of opioid misuse, in that addictive use of opioids dysregulates neurobiological processes implicated in the...
The Clinical Journal of Pain
February 1, 2024
Myrella Paschali, Asimina Lazaridou, Jason Sadora et al.
25 citations
This systematic review aimed to compile existing evidence examining the effects of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for chronic low back pain (CLBP). CLBP leads to millions of disabled individuals in the United States each year. Current pharmacologic treatments are only modestly effective and may present long-term safety issues. MBIs, which have an excellent safety profile, have been...
American Journal of Psychiatry
January 10, 2024
Eric L. Garland, Y. Nakamura, Craig J. Bryan et al.
OBJECTIVE. Evaluate the efficacy of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) for past and current military personnel prescribed long-term opioid therapy (LTOT) for chronic pain. METHODS. In a clinical trial, 230 past and current U.S. military personnel prescribed LTOT were randomized (1:1) to MORE or supportive psychotherapy (in-person and then online via Zoom after onset of COVID-19)....
Explore (New York, N.Y.)
2024
Suchismita Ray, Jamil Bhanji, Nicole Kennelly et al.
Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) is an efficacious intervention to aid recovery from substance use disorder. This study in a pilot sample of individuals in treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) characterizes longer-term changes after the MORE intervention and immediate effects of a brief MORE guided meditation session. Twelve female participants in residential treatment for...
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management
September 1, 2023
Benjamin R. Lewis, Eric L Garland, Kevin Byrne et al.
60 citations
Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy shows promise in treating depression and existential distress in people with serious medical illness. However, its individual-based methodology poses challenges for scaling and resource availability. The HOPE trial (A Pilot Study of Psilocybin Enhanced Group Psychotherapy in Patients with Cancer) is an Institutional Review Boards-approved open-label feasibility...
Psychological Medicine
April 1, 2023
Eric L Garland, Spencer T Fix, Justin Hudak et al.
51 citations
Neuropsychopharmacologic effects of long-term opioid therapy (LTOT) in the context of chronic pain may result in subjective anhedonia coupled with decreased attention to natural rewards. Yet, there are no known efficacious treatments for anhedonia and reward deficits associated with chronic opioid use. Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), a novel behavioral intervention combining...
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
January 18, 2023
Benjamin R. Lewis, Kevin Byrne, John Hendrick et al.
22 citations
Abstract Background Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy has demonstrated significant promise as a treatment for depression, anxiety, and existential distress associated with serious medical illness and has generally been employed on an individual basis, which presents challenges for scaling and resource availability. There are also compelling theoretical reasons to suggest that group-based...
Mindfulness
2023
Eric L Garland, R Lynae Roberts, Adam W. Hanley et al.
14 citations
Mindfulness is theorized to decrease the affective amplification of chronic pain by facilitating a shift from emotionally-laden, catastrophic pain appraisals of nociceptive input to reappraising chronic pain as an innocuous sensory signal that does not signify harm. Understanding of these hypothetical psychological mechanisms of mindfulness-based analgesia has been limited by a lack of direct...
Science Advances
October 14, 2022
Eric L Garland, Adam W. Hanley, Justin Hudak et al.
39 citations
Self-regulation is instantiated by theta oscillations (4 to 8 Hz) in neurons of frontal midline brain regions. Frontal midline theta (FMΘ) is inversely associated with default mode network (DMN) activation, which subserves self-referential processing. Addiction involves impaired self-regulation and DMN dysfunction. Mindfulness is an efficacious self-regulatory practice for treating addiction,...