The Behavioral Addictions

The book provides a pragmatic and engaging guide to help clinicians understand and contextualize conditions that may not be clearly delineated in the DSM-5 diagnostic system. Although not accorded a specific classification, the behaviors addressed in this book share the accepted hallmarks of addiction.

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.

ContributorsPrefaceVideo GuidePart I: IntroductionChapter 1. Helping People Behave Themselves: Identifying and Treating Behavioral Addictions Chapter 2. Forensic Implications of Behavioral AddictionsPart II: The Behavioral AddictionsChapter 3. Problematic Exercise: A Case of Alien FeetChapter 4. Food Addiction: Sugar HighChapter 5. Gambling DisorderChapter 6. Internet Gaming Disorder: Virtual or Real?Chapter 7. Internet Addiction: The Case of Henry, the "Reluctant Hermit"Chapter 8. Texting and E-mail Problem UseChapter 9. Kleptomania: To Steal or Not to Steal -- That Is the QuestionChapter 10. Sex Addiction: The Fire Down BelowChapter 11. Love Addiction: What's Love Got to Do With It?Chapter 12. Shopping Addiction: If the Shoe Fits, Buy It in Every Color!Chapter 13. Tanning Addiction: When Orange Is the New BronzeChapter 14. Work Addiction: Taking Care of BusinessIndex