Causes of Pathological Addiction to Gambling (Human Addiction)
Unknown. Increases during stress and is compulsive.
Symptoms of a Pathological Addiction to Gambling (Human Addiction)
Frequent repeated episodes of participation in gambling, leading to a decrease in professional, material and family values. Patients risk their work, make big debts, break the law in order to raise money or to avoid paying debts. Pathological addiction to computer games with a symbolic win. Lyudomania often, although not always, contributes to the formation of a dependent personality disorder, which is characterized by redirecting most of the problems to the object of the game or person, subordinating their needs to the game or dominant personality, and the formation of mental dependence. In loneliness or outside the game, addicted individuals have a feeling of helplessness and fear of an independent decision, as well as a fear of being abandoned, no free decisions can be made. With lyudomania, a pathological propensity for gambling, vivid violent ideas about the game are described, which take possession of the person especially at the time of stress. As a result of long-term (more than 7 hours a day) work at the computer, a special professional behavior modification and a peculiar coloration of neurosis and psychosis arise. Professional modification of behavior, in particular, is expressed in simplifying speech turns, looking over the interlocutor’s head, automatic gestures resembling typing on the dashboard before falling asleep and waking up, hypnagogic computer images when falling asleep, changing the structure of communication and dreams. In case of sudden problems (erasing information, computer failure), the so-called “absence” effects are revealed, which are expressed in psychogenic freezing in front of the screen, confusion and asthenia, and sometimes anxiety and restless fussiness.
Treatment of Pathological Addiction to Gambling (Human Addiction)
Neuro-linguistic programming, transactional analysis, computer psychotherapy.