“My body is nurturing me”: Personalized spiritual experiences during interoceptive awareness training among people in medication treatment for opioid use disorder.

Research links the neural processes of spiritual experiences, or 'peak experiences' of eudaimonic well-being, to substance abuse recovery. Studies also identify health improvements among substance use disorder (SUD) treatment approaches that include interoceptive awareness training. However, the relationship between interoceptive awareness and spiritual experience within substance use recovery is poorly understood. This conceptual project was designed to explore personalized spiritual experience among a sub-set of participants in a study of Mindful Awareness in Body-oriented Therapy (MABT) for people in medication treatment for opioid use disorder (MOUD). MABT teaches and develops the capacity for interoceptive awareness, defined as the conscious experience of internal bodily sensations, to facilitate improved self-care and well-being. Three themes of spiritual experience emerged based on consistent patterns and processes: Experiencing Wholeness and Healing, Awakening Inner Knowing, and My Body is Nurturing Me. To illustrate how these themes are expressed within the context of MABT, four participant exemplars are provided. Responses to survey questions about spiritual experience and interoceptive awareness were also examined. All participants endorsed some level of SE and the level of IA increased pre to post. In summary, this project highlighted the role of SE in MABT and the potential helpfulness of SE in SUD recovery. Future research could explore underlying mechanisms of IA for improved SE and the role of SE in SUD recovery.