Addictions and Compulsive Behaviours

Whatever behaviours or addictions you or your loved one are struggling with, I will work with you to develop ways of managing these behaviours to reduce their impact on your daily life. Through our work together you will also begin to recognise and understand underlying thoughts, beliefs and feelings that may have contributed to your addictions or behaviours.

Experience

I have significant experience working with addictions from time spent working at a residential treatment centre for drug and alcohol addiction, and have a particular interest in working with addictions and behaviours stemming from internet and technology use, including online gaming.  You can find more information about my work in this area at my website here: www.netaddiction.co.nz


What is it?

Addictions and compulsive behaviours such as eating disorders and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder often begin, perhaps unconsciously, as a response to other unresolved problems or issues; depression, grief, loneliness, fear, a sense of meaninglessness, of not being loved or accepted.  At a certain point however addictions and compulsive behaviours develop a life of their own, and become, like many other diseases, progressive, debilitating and potentially life-threatening.

“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge.  It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason.  It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom” – Edgar Allan Poe