Implementing Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention in Diverse Populations: Challenges and Future Directions

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THE AUTHORS

Hortensia Amaro, Ph.D., is Associate Vice Provost for Community Research Initiatives and Dean's Professor of Social Work and Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California. A psychologist and public health researcher, Dr. Amaro's work has focused on the translation of research to practice and development of innovative gender-specific and culturally tailored interventions and treatment programs in addiction and co-occurring disorders treatment among inner city Latino and African American populations. Her interest in the application of mindfulness-based methods in addictions treatment emerged from her yoga practice, training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and collaboration with colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness.

Notes

2 The reader is asked to consider that Substance Use Disorder Drug (SUD) is a relatively new diagnostic category (APA, 1995; 2013) which is the outcome of a recent check-listing process of medicalizing and “symptomizing” a range of human behaviors which is based upon expert committee consensualization of perceptions, judgments, and decision-making. It is a labeling process based upon 11 criteria (APA, 2013,) which deal with time, a person's experiences, impaired judgment, prosocial role malfunctioning, negative effects on a range of pro-social activities and the introduction, and dependence, upon two concepts- tolerance and withdrawal. These terms represent the development of “drug” use -related processes which are not delineated in terms of their pharmacological actions on the micro-cellular level from a macro "drug experience” which is the outcome of the dynamic interaction between the actual active “natural” or man-made chemical, the user and the site of use at a given point in time. (Zinberg, N. E. (1984). Drug, Set, and Setting: The Basis for Controlled Intoxicant Use. New Haven: Yale University Press) The Substance Use Disorder is not evidence-informed. Nor are any of the other diagnoses in this pathologizing nosological system. A useful diagnosis, which is the outcome of collecting relevant materials, over time, and which are culture-context and situation sensitive, in order to make a needed relevant decision, should, at the very least, enable an understanding of etiology, prognosis, and process of the posited “disease” or condition for effective treatment planning, implementation, and assessment. Editor's note