Main description:

Over the past 30 years, there has been a dramatic increase in the availability of convenient and legal gambling opportunities. Most people can reach a casino in a matter of a few hours, lottery tickets in minutes, or an online gaming site in seconds. Accompanying this proliferation of gambling is a growing understanding that between 5 per cent and 9 per cent of adults experience significant to severe problems due to their gambling activities. These problems have become a real health concern, with substantial costs to individuals, families, and communities. The objective of this book is to provide the clinician - or graduate student - with essential information about problem and pathological gambling. After placing this behavioral addiction and its co-occurring difficulties in perspective, by describing its proliferation, the associated costs, and diagnostic criteria and definitions, the authors present detailed information on a strategy to assess and treat gambling problems in an outpatient setting.
They go on to provide clear and easy-to-follow intervention guidelines, including homework assignments, for a brief and cost-efficient cognitive behavioral approach to problem gambling, involving stepped care and guided self-change. Means of countering problems and barriers to change and vivid case vignettes round off this thorough, but compact guide for clinicians.

Contents:

1. Description; 1.1. Terminology and Definitions: Persistent and recurrent maladaptive gambling behaviour; Sub-clinical problems; Compulsion vs. addiction; Secondary problem versus primary pathology; 1.2. Epidemiology: The Proliferation of Gambling; 1.3. Course and Prognosis: Financial, Personal, and Familial Effects; 1.4. Differential Diagnosis; 1.5. Comorbidities; 1.6. Diagnostic Procedures and Documentation: Screening Instruments (SOGS, DSM IV Based Questionnaires); Diagnostic Interview (DIGS); Assessing Gambling Behavior (Gambling Timeline Followback); Potential Mediating Variables (Gamblings Belief Questionnaire, Gambling Self-Efficacy Questionnaire); 2. Theories and Models of the Disorder; 2.1. Gambling as an Addictive Behavior; 2.2. Addiction; 2.3. Impulse Control; 2.4. Nature and Nurture; 3. Diagnosis and Treatment Indications; 4. Treatment; 4.1. Methods of Treatment: Guided Self-Change and Stepped-Care; - Harm Reduction and Stepped-Care; - Guided Self-Change (Rapid change, Natural recovery, Motivational style, Cognitive-behavioral treatment, Empirical evidence); - Practice Guidelines and the Process of Treatment; - Treatment Phases; - Treatment Effectiveness; 4.2. Mechanisms of Action; 4.3. Efficacy and Prognosis; 4.4. Variations and Combinations of Methods; 4.5. Problems and Barriers to Change; 5. Case Vignette: Just One Big Win; 6. Further Reading; 7. References; 8. Appendix: Tools and Resources