Which of the following is an evidence-based treatment for substance use disorders?

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Understanding which treatments for substance use disorders have solid research backing helps you spot what truly works in practice. Motivational interviewing is a client-centered, collaborative counseling style that helps people resolve ambivalence and strengthen intrinsic motivation to change. It has strong empirical support from randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses showing reductions in substance use and higher treatment engagement, even when delivered as a brief intervention in diverse settings. Its approach—evoking change talk, rolling with resistance, and supporting autonomy—fits well across various substances and levels of care, and major guidelines endorse it as a first-line or adjunct treatment. While relaxation techniques can aid coping and withdrawal management, they don’t reliably produce sustained abstinence when used alone. Hypnotherapy and psychoanalysis, though studied in other contexts, lack the consistent evidence base needed to be considered evidence-based treatments for substance use disorders.