Major psychotherapeutic modalities for heroin addiction: a brief overview

This article provides a brief overview of recent literature on major psychotherapeutic modalities for heroin addiction. These modalities include psychotherapy, behavior therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, family therapy, social skills training approaches, and therapeutic communities. It highlights studies with stronger research design and methodology, many of which are theory-based, and discusses what appear to be the "active ingredients" in these modalities which contribute to successful treatment outcome. It concludes that there is an increasing convergence of theory and research in the field of heroin addiction treatment, making the designing of treatment programs based on empirical knowledge more feasible.