Suchttherapie 2009; 10 - S715
DOI: 10.1055/s-0029-1240379

Attentional retraining in alcoholic patients

J Lindenmeyer 1, T Schoenmakers 2, M de Bruin 2, I Lux 2, A Goertz 2, D van Kerkhof 2, R Wiers 3
  • 1salus klinik Lindow, Lindow
  • 2Universiteit Maastricht Faculty of Psychology & Neuroscience, Department of Clinical Psychological Science, MD Maastricht, Niederlande
  • 3Universiteit van Amsterdam Dept. of Psychology, Amsterdam, Niederlande

Attentional bias for disorder-related stimuli underlies different forms of psychopathology. In alcohol dependency, attentional bias is associated with severity of alcoholism, craving, treatment outcome, and relapse. In this study, a training to decrease attentional bias (Attentional Re-training, AR) was tested as an addition to cognitive behavioral therapy for alcohol dependent patients. In 3 treatment centers, 43 patients with DSM-IV diagnosis of alcohol dependence were randomly assigned to an AR intervention or control training. The AR intervention consisted of 5 sessions in which participants were trained to disengage attention from alcohol-related stimuli.

AR was effective in increasing the ability to disengage from alcohol-related cues, which generalized to untrained stimuli. There were no significant effects on subjective craving. After the intervention, in the clinic with the shortest regular treatment program, AR participants were sooner discharged than control participants. Among the patients who (re)lapsed after the intervention, time to (re)lapse was longer in the AR condition. Results of the study suggest that AR might be valuable addition to the treatment of alcoholism and might stimulate AR research in other areas of

psychopathology.