Minding the Gap: Leveraging Mindfulness to Inform Cue Exposure Treatment for Substance Use Disorders.
Frontiers in Psychology March 22, 2021 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.649409 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Addiction Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that cue exposure treatment for substance use disorders has shown poor efficacy due to extinction threats such as renewal and reinstatement, and proposes that mindfulness-based practices could positively influence cue exposure treatment, with future research needed to test whether mindfulness can attenuate renewal and enhance extinction of salient cues. |
Abstract
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.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on addiction, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psychedelics as Medicines: An Emerging New Paradigm General population | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Restructuring reward processing with Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement: novel therapeutic mechanisms to remediate hedonic dysregulation in addiction, stress, and pain. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Ayahuasca’s entwined efficacy: An ethnographic study of ritual healing from ‘addiction’ | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Hypotheses Regarding the Mechanisms of Ayahuasca in the Treatment of Addictions | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Biosynthesis of an Anti-Addiction Agent from the Iboga Plant. | 2019 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
- Exploring the past, present, and future of the mindfulness field: A multitechnique bibliometric review Frontiers in Psychology July 26, 2022
- Effects of Mindfulness-Based Interventions on the Psychological Well-Being of Family Caregivers of Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Clinical Nursing Research April 12, 2026
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- A systematic review of neurobiological and clinical features of mindfulness meditations Psychological Medicine November 27, 2009
- How Does Mindfulness Training Affect Health? A Mindfulness Stress Buffering Account Current Directions in Psychological Science December 1, 2014
and 16 more in the library