About Contingency Management (CM)
Contingency Management (CM) is a behavioral therapy that uses structured incentive systems to reinforce positive recovery behaviors such as abstinence, treatment attendance, and goal completion. At Trust SoCal, our CM program provides tangible rewards and recognition for meeting recovery milestones, leveraging the brain's natural reward system to strengthen the neural pathways associated with healthy, substance-free behavior.
Addiction hijacks the brain's reward circuitry, making substances the primary source of pleasure and motivation. Contingency Management counteracts this by systematically providing alternative rewards for recovery-positive actions. Each time a client achieves a goal—whether it is a clean drug screen, attending all scheduled sessions, or completing a therapeutic assignment—they receive a meaningful incentive. Over time, this consistent reinforcement helps rewire the brain's reward system, making healthy behaviors increasingly automatic and intrinsically rewarding.
