PSYCHOTHERAPY OF HARMFUL HABITS AND ADDICTIONS
Description
"Psychotherapy of harmful habits and addictions" is dedicated to a problem that has extremely great social significance, because these mental sufferings affect a large part of the Bulgarian population. Moreover, there are clear tendencies for some of them to cover increasingly large segments of society, especially young people.
At the same time, there is a lack of methodical instructions and tools for the prevention and therapy of harmful habits and addictions that can be used successfully in practice. The harmful habits themselves, as well as the various addictions, are extremely diverse and have their own specific appearance, their own characteristic causes, form of manifestation and dynamics for each individual patient. It follows from this that it is necessary to offer in a sufficiently accessible form a relatively large register of possible effective psychotherapeutic counteractions to harmful habits and addictions, to be used by a wider circle of psychologists and psychotherapists, as well as to help orient the relatives of patients, and themselves, if possible and appropriate.
In the book, which is essentially a practical guide for working with patients,
questions about the nature and manifestations of each of the included twelve harmful habits and addictions are discussed; the characteristic features of the course of suffering are considered; the factors and reasons that determine its appearance and development as a mental problem; the possible bad consequences of it are described; the best ways to diagnose are presented (including for differential diagnosis, where necessary) and the most effective possible psychotherapy methods for the Bulgarian conditions.
Psychotherapeutic methods themselves are from different directions and schools of psychotherapy
— psychoanalytic trend, behaviorist trend, Jungian school, etc. The most effective types of psychotherapeutic practice for the therapy of a given harmful habit or addiction are indicated — group therapy, family psychotherapy, cotherapy, suggestive methods, aversive methods, etc. Special attention is paid to those methods, in relation to which there is generally accumulated psychotherapeutic experience and it has been proven that the treatment results are good. In all specific cases, the real circumstances in our country in the field of mental health and the actual capabilities of practicing psychotherapists are taken into account. At the same time, the latest achievements of psychotherapeutic science and practice are also taken into account.
CONTENTS
Introduction… 5
I. General presentation and clarifications... 9
II. Smoking... 15
III. Alcoholism... 29
IV. Addictions... 44
V. Game addiction and dependence on computer games... 63
VI. Gambling… 74
VII. Computer addiction and Internet addiction... 90
VIII. Addiction to sects and destructive cults… 99
IX. Thumb sucking… 115
H. Nail biting... 121
XI. Hair pulling and plucking… 130
XII. Headbutting… 141
XIII. Ridiculous purchases (shopping mania)… 150
Appendix 1. Register of 50 personality traits for the study of drug addicts... 160
Appendix 2. Gambling Addiction Test… 162
Appendix 3. Test for Internet Addiction... 164
Appendix 4. 20 ways against unwanted social impact... 166
Appendix 5. 20 questions about shopping mania… 169
Literature... 171
