Impulse-control disorders such as pathological gambling, sexual addiction, and compulsive shopping cause enormous suffering in people’s lives. The feeling-state theory of impulse-control disorders postulates that these disorders are created when intense positive feelings become linked with specific behaviors. The effect of this linkage is that, to generate the same feeling, the person compulsively reenacts the behavior related to that original positive-feeling event, even if detrimental to his or her own well-being. This reenactment creates the impulse-control disorder. The therapy described in this article is the Impulse-Control Disorder Protocol (ICDP), which uses a modified form of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) to address these fixations. A case study of an individual with pathological gambling illustrates the application of ICDP.
Allen, A., & Hollander, E. ( 2006). Sexual compulsions. In E. Hollander & D. Stein (Eds.), Clinical manual of impulse-control disorders (pp. 256-278). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association.
2.
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text revision). Washington, DC: Author.
Bisson, J., Ehlers, A., Matthews, R., Pilling, S., Richards, S., & Turner, S. ( 2007) Psychological treatments for chronic posttraumatic stress disorder: Systematic review and meta-analysis. British Journal of Psychiatry, 190, 97-104.
5.
Blum, K., Braverman, E.R., Holder, J.M., Lubar, J.F., Monastra, V.J., Miller, D., . . . Comings, D.E. ( 2000). Reward deficiency syndrome: A biogenetic model for the diagnosis and treatment of impulsive, addictive, and compulsive behaviors . Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 32(Suppl.), 1-68.
6.
Boening, J.A.L. ( 2001). Neurobiology of an addiction memory. Journal of Neural Transmission, 108, 755-765.
7.
Carnes, P. ( 1991). Don’t call it love. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
8.
Comings, D.E., & Blum, K. ( 2000). Reward deficiency syndrome: Genetic aspects of behavioral disorders. Progress in Brain Research, 126, 325-341.
9.
Cox, R.P., & Howard, M.D. ( 2007). Utilization of EMDR in the treatment of sexual addiction: A case study. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 12, 1-20.
10.
Dittmar, H. ( 2004). Understanding and diagnosing compulsive buying. In R. H. Coombs (Ed.), Handbook of addictive disorders: A practical guide to diagnosis and treatment (pp. 411-450). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
11.
Dittmar, H. ( 2005). Compulsive buying-a growing concern? An examination of gender, age, and endorsement of materialistic values as predictors. British Journal of Psychology, 96, 467-491.
12.
Eisen, S.A., Nong, L., Lyons, M.J., Scherrer, J.F., Griffith, K., True, W.R., . . . Tsuang, M.T. ( 1998). Familial influences on gambling behavior: An analysis of 3359 twin pairs. Addiction, 93, 1375-1384.
13.
Feuerlein, W., Ringer, C., Kufner, H., & Antons, K. ( 1979). The diagnosis of alcoholism-the Munich Alcoholism Test (MALT). International Journal of Rehabilitation Research, 2, 533-534.
14.
Goodwin, D.W., Powell, B., Bremer, H., Hoine, H., & Stern, J. ( 1969). Alcohol and recall: State dependent effects in man. Science, 163, 1358-1360.
15.
Hase, M., Schallmayer, S., & Sack, M. ( 2008). EMDR reprocessing of and addiction memory: Pretreatment, posttreatment, and 1-month follow-up. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 2, 170-179.
16.
Kenealy, P.M. ( 1997). Mood-state-dependent retrieval: The effects of inducted mood on memory reconsidered. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 50A, 290-317.
17.
Koob, G.F. ( 1992). Drugs of abuse: Anatomy, pharmacology and function of reward pathways. Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, 13, 177-184.
18.
Lang, A.J., Craske, M.G., Brown, M., & Ghaneian, A. ( 2001). Fear-related state dependent memory. Cognition & Emotion, 15, 695-703.
19.
Mann, K., & Ackermann, K. ( 2000). Die OCDS-G: Psychometrische Kennwerte der deutschen Version der Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale (Psychometric characteristics of the German version of the Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale). Sucht, 46, 90-100.
20.
Margraf, J. ( 1994). Diagnostisches Kurz-Inventar bei psychischen Storungen Diagnostic Short-Interview for Mental Disorders. Berlin , Germany: Springer.
21.
Margaron, H. ( 2004). Pleasure: From onthogenesis to addiction. Substance Use & Misuse, 39, 1423-1434.
22.
Petry, N.M. ( 2004). Pathological gambling: Etiology, comorbidity, and treatment . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
23.
Petry, N.M., & Steinberg, K.L. (2005). Childhood maltreatment in male and female treatment-seeking pathological gamblers. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 19, 226-229.
24.
Petry, N.M., Stinson, F.S., & Grant, B.F. ( 2004). Comorbidity of DSM-IV pathological gambling and psychiatric disorders: Results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 66, 564-574.
25.
Schmitz, J.M. ( 2005). The interface between impulse-control disorders and addictions: Are pleasure pathway responses shared neurobiological substrates? Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 12, 149-168.
26.
Shapiro, F. ( 2001). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): Basic principles, protocols, and procedures (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press .
27.
Shaffer, H.J., Hall, M.N., & Vander Bilt, J. (1999). Estimating the prevalence of disordered gambling behavior in the United States and Canada: A research synthesis. American Journal of Public Health, 89, 1369-1376.
28.
Scherrer, J.F., Xian, H., Kapp, J.M.K., Waterman, M.P.H., Shah, M.H.S., Volberg, R., & Eisen, S.A. ( 2007). Association between exposure to childhood and lifetime traumatic events and lifetime pathological gambling in a twin cohort. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 195, 72-78.
29.
Schneider, J.P. ( 2004). Understanding and diagnosing sex addiction. In R. H. Coombs (Ed.), Handbook of addictive disorders (pp. 197-232). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley .
30.
van der Kolk ( 1996). Trauma and memory. In B. A. van der Kolk, A. C. McFarlane , & L. Weisaeth (Eds.), Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming Experience on mind, body, and society (pp. 279-302). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
31.
Van der Kolk, B., Burbridge, J.A., & Suzuki, J. ( 1997). The psychobiology of traumatic memory. Clinical implications of neuroimaging studies. In R. Yehuda & A.C. McFarlane (Eds.) Psychobiology of posttraumatic stress disorder, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 821, 99-113. New York, NY: New York Academy of Sciences.
32.
Weingartner, H., & Faillace, L.A. (1971). Alcohol state-dependent learning in man. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disorders, 153, 395-406.
