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Book addiction treatment with a psychologist or cbt psychotherapist

Are you considering to book addiction treatment? Addictive behaviours are powerful habits. They do not only affect the individual engaged in the addictive habit. Addiction also affects couples and families. Saying goodbye to addiction is not easy. If it was, we would have never needed to offer specialist addiction treatment in the first place.

A key feature of addictive behaviours is that people find it hard to break their habit, even after they realise that it destroys their lives. This tension causes frustration and confusion. It also affects people’s view of themselves and their relationships with their loved ones. Because they are deeply ingrained in human nature, habits, including addictions, are extremely hard to break. Thus, don’t feel like you have to break your addictive habit alone. Ask for psychological help today. Evidence-based psychological therapy for substance use and behavioural addiction is available at Spiral Psychology, including addiction treatment for couples and online addiction therapy.

Dr Leonidaki, Founder and Clinical Director, is a UK lead psychologist specialising in addiction to substances and behavioural addiction. She has co-edited the self-help book “Break free: How to stop Gambling”.

Book addiction treatment now and speak to a clinical psychologist specialising in addictive behaviours. If you have specific requirements about finding an addiction therapist or psychiatrist n the UK, consider our assessment and matching service.

If you are looking to book bespoke staff training courses on addictive behaviours for your team or organisation, contact us.

What is addiction?

Addiction is like a bad habit that we cannot break or an abusive relationship that we cannot end. When we are trapped in an addictive behaviour, we feel a strong urge to repeat this behaviour again and again, although a part of us knows too well that doing so will cause us great amounts of harm and pain. This struggle creates an internal conflict, so we often try to break free from an addiction only to find out that strong urges drive us back to it. The forces that drive us back to addictive behaviours are often felt as powerful and beyond our control, which creates a sense that we are forever trapped in a vicious spiral.

What are the most common types of addiction?

Substance addiction is well recognised. Psychoactive drugs with addictive qualities include illicit drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, and cannabis, and legal substances, such as tobacco, alcohol, and benzodiazepines. These substances directly affect a certain part of our brain, called the limbic system, known as our reward centre. Thus, substance use leads to happy feelings, which then drive us to repeat this experience. It is believed that repeated and chronic substance misuse hijacks and changes our brain, leading to physical and psychological dependency.

In the last ten years, certain forms of behavioural addictions have been officially recognised. The prime example is gambling addiction, while more recently gaming addiction has also become a formal diagnosis. Gambling disorder and gaming disorder have been the only two official forms of behavioural addiction so far. However, does not mean that other feel-good activities do not have the potential to become addictive for certain people. In fact, more and more people come forward to seek help for addiction to sex, pornography, shopping, exercise, or work. Thus, it may be just a matter of time until more addictive behaviours are recognised after being sufficiently studied and researched.

Why addiction happens?

Both physical and psychological causes lie behind addiction.

The National Institute on Drugs Abuse (NIDA) explains how drugs interact with the brain and trigger the release of strong feel-good signals.

Behavioural addictions, such as gambling, also affect the brain, making it difficult to press the brake when you need to, as this video from Brain Connections shows.

Another way that addiction can exploit our tricky brain is by making it fall into certain traps. These are patterns of illogical (non-scientific) thinking that the human brain is prone to, and addiction creates the perfect habitat for these thinking patterns to take over. The gambler’s fallacy, which concerns how our brain thinks about probabilities, is a great example of this, as explained here.

Addiction is also a way of soothing emotional pain, as the renowned Dr Gabor Mate explains.
Indeed, many people with addictive behaviours have lived painful lives. Addiction becomes their way to numb feelings and memories related to trauma and loss, anxiety and depression, painful relationships, and life transitions. Addiction often helps them bury these feelings so deeply that they cannot be easily accessed.

How can therapy help addiction? Addiction therapy types

Psychological treatment for addiction can be extremely helpful, especially for certain forms of addictive behaviour.

The most well-researched therapy for addiction is cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). CBT for addiction is particularly useful in the initial part of your recovery from addiction. This is because CBT will provide you with a useful set of tools to tackle your addiction problem. In CBT for addiction, you will learn how your addictive habit affects our tricky brain and how to cope with craving, deal with triggers, change your lifestyle and thinking, and prevent a relapse.

Is CBT effective for addiction? Yes it certainly is. However, recovery from addiction does not always end when you break away from your habit. Many people find it useful to understand more about the roots of their addiction problem. Addiction counselling or addiction psychotherapy can help uncover what lies behind your addiction and face it, without having to rely on anything but yourself to soothe the pain.

Stopping addiction can often feel like saying goodbye to a loyal companion. It’s not easy and you may not feel entirely ready to do it. If you have mixed feelings about ending your addiction, this is entirely normal. Before tackling our addiction, the first few sessions will help you explore these feelings and determine how ready you are to commit to ending our addiction. This is the focus of another evidence-based therapy for addiction, called motivational interviewing, which is there to help you early on while you are making up your mind about breaking free from an addictive behaviour.

Breaking free from addiction: book addiction treatment

If you are ready to take the first step towards tackling your addiction, then book addiction treatment.

Start with an appointment or contact us to arrange a 15-minute consultation free of charge.

To book directly an initial  therapy appointment with Dr Leonidaki or assessment and matching, complete the form below.

We have a high level of expertise in addiction treatment and addiction psychotherapy and together we will find the best approach for you. If you have specific requirements for therapy, then use our assessment and matching service. Depending on your needs, budget, and locality Dr Leonidaki will help you find the right addiction therapist or an addiction psychiatrist in the UK.

*To treat severe addiction safely, we may need to work in partnership with a psychiatrist or recommend a referral to a residential or day programme.*