Illustration of psychological intervention
This is a case illustration (a pseudo or constructed case): if a wife brought her pathologically gambling husband to Psycho.forest.workshop, the following work would be performed by Dr. Yeung:
Initial interview
An initial interview with the wife and husband would be conducted to identify the problem. A thorough history of the wife and husband would be collected to gather a foundation of their biogenetics/neuro-psycho-social-developmental functioning.
Enhance motivation to change
If the husband’s gambling behavior is identified as the core problem associated with the malfunctioning of the individual and family, motivational interviewing would be conducted to enhance the husband’s (say the “client” in the following paragraph) motivation to deal with his problem.
With the motivation of client’s strengthened, more in-depth information would be collected from him to help him to identify how the gambling behavior has been developed and maintained.
Focus on intervention and change together
A relapse cycle would then be identified. Distorted cognition related to negative emotion and low self-esteem (e.g., I’m a worthless person; My wife is more competent than me) would be identified and confronted.
The client would be made aware of high risk situations and signals of relapse. Precautions would be taken to avoid “seemingly irrelevant decisions” (For example, occasionally browse a news, but the newspaper contains information about gambling) that may put oneself at high risk of gambling again.
The client would be helped to learn from lapse and relapse, and to accept relapse, instead of trapping oneself in guilt or helplessness, as a normal part of the path to achieving total abstinence. Lifestyle modifications (e.g., fostering healthy hobbies, exercising to establish a connection with nature), consolidation of self-efficacy, developing mindfulness skills to cope with the temptations and internal urge, and participating in marital counseling to address negative communication patterns that form the vicious cycle with negative emotion, etc. would also be domains of intervention when necessary.