Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention for Addictive Behaviors

This authoritative book presents an innovative relapse prevention program that integrates mindfulness practices with evidence-based cognitive and behavioral strategies. Clinicians get essential information and materials for implementing the approach with their clients. In eight carefully structured group sessions, participants gain awareness of their own inner experiences, step out of habitual patterns of thought and behavior that can trigger relapse, and acquire concrete skills to meet the day-to-day challenges of recovery. User-friendly features include detailed guidelines for facilitating each session, scripted examples of guided meditations, and more than 20 reproducible handouts and forms. This book will be important reading for clinical psychologists, social workers, substance abuse counselors, and other clinicians who treat clients with addiction and substance use problems.

Sarah Bowen, PhD, Neha Chawla, PhD, and G. Alan Marlatt, PhD, all at the Addictive Behaviors Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

"Here is a book that contains both an evidence-based program and an invitation to explore a wholly new way of dealing with addictive feelings and behaviors. It is based on many years of painstaking research on the factors that help or hinder the long journey to recovery after addiction. It explains in helpful detail the demands and huge potential of the mindfulness approach for clinicians and clients. This book will be an inspiration to all who read it, and transformative for those who practice it." - Mark Williams, University of Oxford, UK "I'm very impressed by the systematic approach to recovery that Marlatt et al. offer. This book gives clear guidance on how to blend mindfulness, a sometimes vague topic, with addiction treatment, a notoriously slippery enterprise. The result is an invaluable resource, well researched and practically oriented. I'll be using this book in my own teaching." - Kevin Griffin, author of One Breath at a Time "Mindfulness is the single most powerful tool available for those seekin