Does Mindfulness Meditation Increase Effectiveness of Substance Abuse Treatment with Incarcerated Youth? A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial Sam Himelstein, Stephen Saul & Albert Garcia-Romeu
Mindfulness ISSN 1868-8527 Mindfulness DOI 10.1007/s12671-015-0431-6
1 23
Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +Business Media New York. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. You may further deposit the accepted manuscript version in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later and provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com”.
1 23
Author's personal copy Mindfulness DOI 10.1007/s12671-015-0431-6
ORIGINAL PAPER
Does Mindfulness Meditation Increase Effectiveness of Substance Abuse Treatment with Incarcerated Youth? A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial Sam Himelstein 1 & Stephen Saul 2 & Albert Garcia-Romeu 3
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract A growing body of evidence suggests that mindfulness meditation is associated with a number of physiological and psychological benefits in both adult and juvenile populations. Research on mindfulness-based interventions among at-risk and incarcerated youth populations has also shown feasibility as a means of enhancing self-regulation and well-being. This randomized controlled trial examined an 8- to 12-week program in which participants received individual and group psychotherapy. Participants in the experimental condition received formal mindfulness training alongside psychotherapy, while those in the control condition received psychotherapy without mindfulness training. All participants received the group intervention. Participants were recruited from a courtmandated substance abuse group treatment program at a juvenile detention camp in the San Francisco Bay Area. Participants were 35 incarcerated youth (100 % male; 70 % Hispanic; mean age = 16.45). Of these, 27 provided complete pre- and post-treatment assessment data. Measures of mindfulness, locus of control, decision-making, self-esteem, and attitude toward drugs were administered before and after the intervention. Detention camp staff provided behavioral rating points for each participant in
* Sam Himelstein
[email protected] 1
Center for Adolescent Studies, Oakland, CA, USA
2
Star Vista, Redwood City, CA, USA
3
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
the week prior to beginning the study treatment and in the week after completing the intervention. Significant increases in self-esteem (p
