Topic: "Improving Opioid Use Disorder Treatment: Understanding the Neuroscience of Dehumanization, Stigma, Addiction & Compassion to Enhance our Practice"
Speakers: Jessie Tibbs, PhD and Julio Rojas, PhD
Professional Practice Gap: 1. Practitioners may not be aware of how societal attitudes toward people with substance use disorders relate to their own implicit biases toward patients with opioid use disorder. 2. Practitioners may not realize the subtle ways in which such implicit biases can negatively impact the care they provide to patients with opioid use disorder. 3. Despite widespread awareness of the opioid epidemic, knowledge about how the brain changes through the stages of addiction is less well known. Understanding of these changes and seeing them through a relational framework can help providers understand their patient’s emotional experiences and behaviors, and can improve compassion toward patients with opioid use disorder.
Learning Objectives:
1. Reflect upon how our personal and societal attitudes towards individuals with substance use disorders alter how we may perceive our patients with opioid use disorders.
2. Describe how the brain changes throughout the process of addiction and how these changes accompany patterns of behavior.
3. Summarize practices that can decrease dehumanization of and increase compassion for patients with opioid use disorder.
CE Credits: 1