TY - CHAP TI - The Emerging Science of Mindfulness as a Treatment for Addiction AU - Houlihan, Sean Dae AU - Brewer, Judson A. T2 - Mindfulness and Buddhist-Derived Approaches in Mental Health and Addiction A2 - Shonin, Edo A2 - Gordon, William Van A2 - Griffiths, Mark D. AB - Few conditions cause as much suffering on a personal and societal level as addictions. There have been considerable advances in elucidating the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms underlying addiction, but these insights have not translated into treatment innovations. Mindfulness training, a method of self-observation based on ancient Buddhist psychological models of human suffering, has recently shown promise in the treatment of addictions. Remarkably, the early Buddhist models might be able to further inform our current understanding of addiction and offer novel treatments that outperform traditional options. While Buddhist meditations were not originally designed to specifically treat substance dependencies, Buddhist psychological models show considerable overlap with the current models of addiction, and Buddhist practices aim explicitly to eliminate the causes of craving. In this chapter, we will describe the overlap and similarities between early and contemporary models of the addictive process, review studies of mindfulness training for addictions and their mechanistic effects on the relationship between craving and behavior, and discuss recent neuroimaging studies that help to inform our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying mindfulness. CY - Cham DA - 2016/// PY - 2016 SP - 191 EP - 210 PB - Springer International Publishing SN - 978-3-319-22255-4 UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22255-4_9 ER -