Impulse Control Disorders: A Clinician's Guide to Understanding and Treating Behavioral Addictions

by Jon E. Grant

Impulse control disorders such as gambling and risky sexual behavior are increasingly recognized as treatable forms of addictions. This is the first comprehensive book on the topic for clinicians, providing clear clinical guidance on assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up.

209 pages, Paperback

First published January 11, 2008

Reviews

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been extremely helpful in understanding impulse control disorders: intermittent explosive disorder, kleptomania, pyromania, sex and gambling addictions, trichotillomania, pathological skin picking, compulsive buying, self-injurious behavior and binge eating. Unfortunately, most of the research (and therefor attention in this book) is focused on pathological gambling, so treatment implications for the other behavioral addictions were not as clear.

There is information on what sorts of treatment are most beneficial for behavioral addictions and a lot of focus is given to pharmaceutical options, although counseling is often as effective if not more so. The most effective counseling treatments are also mentioned, but this gets into an area far more complicated and outside the scope of this book, so if your practice involves mental health counseling, additional study is needed to implement any of the treatments listed in this book. However, knowing where to start cannot be underestimated.