Twelve-month follow-up of psychotherapy for opiate dependence

To provide information on the long-debated issue of the value of psychotherapy as an addition to paraprofessional counseling services for opiate addicts receiving methadone maintenance, the authors obtained 12-month follow-up data on 93 such patients randomly assigned to a 6-month course of either paraprofessional drug counseling or counseling plus professional psychotherapy. The psychotherapy patients had a significantly better overall status at 7-month follow-up and also at 12-month follow-up, 6 months after the psychotherapy ended. The authors conclude that psychotherapy can be evaluated by using scientific methods and that it can have measurable and sustained benefits in the treatment of opiate addiction.