The Behavioral Addictions

The Behavioral Addictions is the first American
Psychiatric Publishing title to explore the diagnosis and treatment of
patients who suffer from behavioral addictions, extreme forms of which share
specific characteristics with severe forms of substance use disorders. These
characteristics include tolerance (the need to use the substance or perform
the troublesome behavior at higher doses, or more and more frequently, in
order to achieve the same effect); withdrawal (feelings of restlessness,
irritability, and discontent following abrupt discontinuation of the
substance or the behavior); obsessive thinking and planning that block out
anything other than obtaining or engaging in the addictive agent or
behavior; and accompanying external consequences in related to finances,
health, interpersonal relationships, legal affairs, etc. Although not all
behavioral addictions are currently recognized as such by DSM-5, both
substances and behaviors can hijack a person's pleasure-and-reward brain
circuitry, causing great suffering.

This case-based volume is
practical and engaging and offers many features that make it not only
informative but also accessible and entertaining:

* Behaviors
covered, both those widely recognized and those less commonly accepted,
involve exercise, food, gambling, Internet gaming, Internet surfing,
kleptomania, love, sex, shopping, work, tanning, and
e-mailing/texting.
* Introductory chapters discuss the relationship of
behavioral or process addictions to substance use disorders across many
spheres, and they provide an overview of the behavioral addictions from
neurobiological, theoretical, clinical, and forensic perspectives.
*
Gambling disorder is now classified in DSM-5 as a behavioral addiction,
lending credence to the construct of behavioral addictions and providing
precedent for future consideration of other behavioral addictions, such as
those highlighted in the volume.
* Each chapter focuses on a real-life
case study of a patient with a behavioral addiction. Videos that accompany
the volume demonstrate encounters between a clinician and a patient
exhibiting an addiction. This puts material on assessment, treatment, etc.
into a real-world context.
* Key points for review and multiple-choice
questions are included at the end of each chapter.

Not simply an
exaggeration of everyday social and personal ailments, these behavioral
conditions present clinicians with unique and poorly researched challenges
in everyday clinical practice. The Behavioral Addictions helps the
reader to determine not only where to draw the line between healthy and
unhealthy levels of participation in a behavior, but also how to intervene
in ways that are therapeutic, effective, and evidence-based.