The studies reviewed above suggest that technology-based CBT interventions, provided that they are carefully constructed, developed to be as engaging as possible, and rigorously evaluated in methodologically sound clinical trials, have tremendous potential as a dissemination strategy to reach the majority of individuals with substance use problems who do not receive care due to issues of access, stigma, costs, concerns about confidentiality, and many more (Carroll & Rounsaville, 2010; Kazdin & Blase, 2011). While one important direction for technology-based interventions is as a dissemination tool to improve access to evidence based treatments, a second direction may lie in exploiting features of technology-based interventions to develop more potent, individualized, and scalable versions of CBT, better linked to and informed by cognitive science and neuroscience than traditional CBT interventions. In addition, technology offers strategies for enhancing our ability to study CBT and other interventions more systematically and more rigorously. In the sections below we elaborate on how these possibilities may accelerate development of cognitive behavioral interventions in the next 30 years.
