SECTION ON BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTIONS
Director: Kimberly C. Kirby, Ph.D.
Dr. Kirby is a psychologist with specialization in behavior analysis and behavioral pharmacology. She received her doctorate from the University of Kansas and completed postdoctoral training at Duke University and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association Divisions 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse) and 50 (Addictions). She is also a full member of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence and the Association for Behavior Analysis. She has focused her research on behavioral treatments that improve motivation for recovery and community reinforcement approaches that involve family members and significant others. She has more than 90 publications in professional books, meeting proceedings, and journals.
Section Mission: To take behavioral interventions that have evidence of efficacy in research settings and use rigorous scientific methods to develop, adapt and improve effectiveness and acceptability to clients, their families, and the community.
Research and Evaluation: In research settings, behavioral interventions including contingency management and community reinforcement have shown evidence of efficacy in increasing treatment entry and retention, and positive outcomes on drug abstinence and progress toward treatment goals. Despite these impressive research findings, behavioral interventions have not enjoyed widespread use in clinical settings. Dr. Kirby and her colleagues are assessing barriers to implementation of empirically demonstrated behavioral interventions in outpatient treatment settings and developing new methods for delivering contingency management and community reinforcement in ways that are more acceptable to treatment providers and other members of the community. View Selected Projects.
Practice Improvement: Surveys of state government regulations reveal credentialing and counselor training requirements differ between substance abuse and mental health counselors and this may affect provider readiness for behavioral interventions and other evidence based practices. In addition, Dr. Kirby and her colleagues are conducting research examining the effects of different lengths of treatment and factors influencing the long-term maintenance of drug abuse. View Selected Projects.
Instrument
Development: Surveys and other instruments developed by Dr. Kirby
and colleagues are now available to researchers and practitioners, including
surveys measuring provider attitudes toward behavioral interventions and
measurements of problems that family members and significant others experience
when they are in a close relationship with a drug or alcohol abuser. View
Selected Projects.
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