Drug Abuse Treatment Through Collaboration Practice and Research Partnerships That Work

In this work, James L. Sorensen and co-editors Richard A. Rawson, Joseph Guydish and Joan E. Zweben begin to narrow the divide that exists between research and clinical practice. Bringing insights from their experience on both sides of the divide, they describe how the problem is partly a failure of communication. In the practitioner's view, research seems disconnected from clinical needs, and researchers may not be asking meaningful questions about treatment. From the researcher's view, treatment professionals may not seem open to new ideas, and the diffusion of knowledge to the field seems too slow. As a result, despite a boom in scientific findings related to neuroscience, pharmacology, health services delivery and other related disciplines, there has been little more than a ripple in the clinical treatment of addiction. This book promotes (and exemplifies) collaboration between research and practice in the substance abuse field. A multidisciplinary group of scientists and practitioners probe such topics as what field-developed treatments have attracted research attention, what research-developed treatments have been readily adopted in the field, and what is needed to bring researchers and practitioners into accord. It illustrates how, working together, researchers and practitioners can identify and further develop promising scientific protocols, employ the most rigorous standards to test them and put into practice those treatments which prove to be most effective.