As any addictions treatment practitioner will tell you, what happens after a person commits to changing addictive behaviors is critical. Bowen, Chawla, and Marlatt step boldly into the arena of habitual behavior, reactivity to cues, urges, craving, and relapse with a potent tool: nonjudgmental mindful awareness. This excellent book integrates two rich traditions--mindfulness and relapse prevention--into a promising new clinical approach. Like a well-tuned GPS, the book helps professionals navigate each session, providing clear guidelines, suggested scripts, excellent clinical dialogues, home practice assignments, and troubleshooting tips.--David B. Rosengren, PhD, President, Prevention Research Institute, Lexington, Kentucky
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, DPhil, Wellcome Principal Research Fellow, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
I'm very impressed by the systematic approach to recovery that Bowen 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 seeking freedom from addiction. Drawing on their notable wealth of research and clinical experience, Bowen et al. have created a groundbreaking relapse prevention program. For any therapist drawn to the practice of mindfulness, this guide provides a clear, accessible, and sensitive way to engage clients in a process of deep transformation and healing.--Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance
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 seeking freedom from addiction. Drawing on their notable wealth of research and clinical experience, Marlatt et al. have created a groundbreaking relapse prevention program. For any therapist drawn to the practice of mindfulness, this guide provides a clear, accessible, and sensitive way to engage clients in a process of deep transformation and healing. - Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance
As any addictions treatment practitioner will tell you, what happens after a person commits to changing addictive behaviors is critical. Bowen, Chawla, and Marlatt step boldly into the arena of habitual behavior, reactivity to cues, urges, craving, and relapse with a potent tool: nonjudgmental mindful awareness. This excellent book integrates two rich traditions-mindfulness and relapse prevention/m-/into a promising new clinical approach. Like a well-tuned GPS, the book helps professionals navigate each session, providing clear guidelines, suggested scripts, excellent clinical dialogues, home practice assignments, and troubleshooting tips. - David B. Rosengren, Prevention Research Institute, Kentucky, USA
The detailed session guides in this manual are very helpful. Each begins with a box containing a list of needed materials, the theme for the session, goals, and a detailed outline. In addition, each session has practice guidelines for the in-session exercises, sample dialogue between the facilitator and participants, and tracking forms for the home practice exercises. There is also information on topics that are clearly drawn from experience practicing mindfulness and delivering the program, including how to discuss common reactions to the mindfulness exercises, including sleepiness, agitation, thought wandering, and emotions. Facilitators who have the recommended experience with their own mindfulness practice should be able to pick this book up and start conducting the sessions....Well worth the read for psychologists interested in mindfulness in general or its application to addiction treatment specifically. It provides an excellent example of a manual-guided approach to mindfulness training that can be used in clinical practice and evaluated in research studies. - Susan H. Godfrey, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 56, No. 27, July 6, 2011
I thoroughly recommend what could be Marlatt's last book to all who work with people who have addictions and want to change. It can also be used as a self-help book. - Fraser Ross, Addiction Today, Volume 23, No. 135, March/April 2012
