As a scientist and clinician, I’ve long been struck by how trauma, chronic pain, and addiction often travel together. For many patients, these conditions form a tangled knot that is difficult to unravel with traditional therapies. Most psychotherapeutic approaches treat trauma, pain, and addiction in isolation, yet what patients truly need is an integrated approach that addresses them simultaneously. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is highly prevalent among people with chronic pain and opioid use disorder (OUD), yet there are few evidence-based treatments designed to address this complex comorbidity.

That’s why I’m excited to share results from our NIH-funded study, published in Nature Mental Health, involving 241 patients with PTSD, chronic pain, and opioid misuse. We found that Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) led to clinically significant reductions in PTSD symptoms in 59 percent of participants. In addition, patients in MORE became better at........

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