Within you, without you: Where does addiction reside?

In 1984, Dr. Milton Burglass and Dr. Howard Shaffer published a paper in the journal Addictive Behaviors and claimed that arguably the important questions in the addiction field are ‘why do people become addicted to some things and not others?’ and ‘why some people become addicted and not others?’ Answers to these questions have been hindered by two common misconceptions about addiction, which to some extent have underpinned the ‘hard core’ disease concept of addiction. These are that addiction somehow resides within: (i) particular types of people or (ii) particular substances, and/or particular kinds of activity. That is, either some people are already ‘diseased,’ or else some substances/ activities cause this disease, or both.

There is a belief that some people are destined to become addicted. Typically this is explained in one (or both) of two ways. That some people (i.e., ‘addicts’) have an addictive personality, and that there is a genetic basis for addiction. The evidence for ‘addictive personality’ rests to a certain extent upon one’s faith in the validity of psychometric testing. Setting aside this major hurdle, the evidence in this area (as I argued with my colleagues Dr. Michael Larkin and Dr. Richard Wood in a 2006 issue of Addiction Research and Theory [ART]) is still inconclusive and contradictory.

First, psychologists have yet to determine which particular personality traits are linked to addiction. Studies have claimed that ‘the addictive personality’ may be characterized by a wide range of factors (e.g., sensation-seeking, novelty-seeking, extroversion, locus-of-control preferences, major traumatic life events, learned behaviours, etc.). The extent of this range stretches not only the notion of an ‘addictive personality’ but also the concept of ‘personality’ itself. Inevitably, much of this work relies on correlation analysis, and so the interpretation of results is not easily framed in terms of cause and effect. The approach is overly simplistic and is underpinned by a simple proposition that if we can divide people up into the right groups, then the explanation will emerge. However, addiction is far more complex than this. Of course, the relationship between individual bodies, minds, contexts, and life histories is complex and important – but it requires that we approach the matter from a more sophisticated and integrative position.

The search for a genetic basis for addiction rests upon the notion that some types of individuals are somehow ‘biologically wired’ to become addicts. In our 2006 ART paper, we argued that we must set aside any doubts about the limited conceptualization of ‘the environment’ that often typifies this kind of research, and its combination with epidemiological designs that are largely descriptive. Meta-analytic reviews have concluded that the heritability of addictive behaviour is likely to be controlled by many genes each contributing a small fraction of the overall risk. Furthermore, some of these same genes appear to be risk factors for other problems, some of them conceptually unrelated to addiction. We argued that the main point here is that while these findings do contribute something to our understanding of ‘why some people and not others,’ they do not adequately or independently explain the range of variation. Therefore the most we can say is that some people are more likely to develop problems under certain conditions, and that given the right conditions most people could probably develop an addiction. Emphasis needs to be placed on identifying those ‘conditions,’ rather than on searching for the narrowest of reductionist explanations.

We also argued in our 2006 ART paper that substances and activities cannot be described as intrinsically addictive in themselves (unless one chooses to define ‘addictive’ in terms of a substance or behaviour’s ability to produce tolerance and/or withdrawal, and to ignore the range of human experience that is excluded by this). Biologists may be able to tell us very valuable things about the psychopharmacological nature of the rewards that particular substances and behaviours provide, and the different kinds of neuroadaptation that they may or may not produce in order to effect tolerance and/or withdrawal. But we argue that this on its own, is not an adequate explanation for addiction. In 1975, Dr. Lee Robins’ classic study (in the Archives of General Psychiatry) of heroin-users returning from the Vietnam war is one example of the evidence that refutes this oversimplification. This study clearly highlighted the importance of context (i.e., that in a war zone environment individuals were addicted to heroin but on return to civilian life the addiction ceased to exist), and the framework provided by such contexts for making sense of addiction. In a hostile and threatening environment, opiates clearly provided something not usually required by most people; and given a cultural environment in which opiate use is a commonplace, and opiates are available, then opiate use ‘makes sense’. This study provides support for the assertion that some people are more likely to become addicted under some conditions, and that given the right conditions perhaps many people could understand what it means to be an addict.

So, with regard to the question, ‘why some individuals/addictions and not others?’ the rewards associated with various activities may be qualitatively very different, and may not necessarily be inherent or unique to a particular activity or substance, either. Many rewarding activities are rewarding because they present individuals with opportunities to ‘shift’ their own subjective experience of themselves (for example, see the research on Ecstasy use and bungee jumping that I published with Dr. Michael Larkin in a 2004 issue of the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology).

Frequently, a range of such opportunities is offered to the experienced user. Dr. Howard Shaffer (in a 1996 paper in the Journal of Gambling Studies) has pointed out that those activities that can be most relied upon to shift self-experience in a robust manner are likely to be the most popular – and (as a consequence) to be the most frequent basis of problems. So, obviously, our understanding of the available resources for mood modification must play a major part in understanding addiction. However, we must make a careful distinction between describing some substances as being more ‘robust shifters of experience’ than others (as we advocated in our 2006 ART paper) and describing some substances as ‘more addictive’ than others (which we argued against).

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Burglass, M.E. & Shaffer, H.J. (1984). Diagnosis in the addictions I: Conceptual problems. Addictive Behaviors, 3, 19-34.

Griffiths, M.D.  (2005). A ‘components’ model of addiction within a biopsychosocial framework. Journal of Substance Use, 10, 191-197.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Behavioural addiction: The case for a biopsychosocial approach. Transgressive Culture, 1(1), 7-28.

Griffiths, M.D. & Larkin, M. (2004). Conceptualizing addiction: The case for a ‘complex systems’ account. Addiction Research and Theory, 12, 99-102.

Larkin, M., Wood, R.T.A. & Griffiths, M.D. (2006). Towards addiction as relationship. Addiction Research and Theory, 14, 207-215.

Orford, J. (2001). Excessive Appetites: A Psychological View of the Addictions (Second Edition). Chichester: Wiley.

Robins, L.N, Helzer, J.E, & Davis, D.H (1975) Narcotic use in Southeast Asia and afterward. Archives of General Psychiatry, 32, 955-961.

Shaffer, H. J. (1996). Understanding the means and objects of addiction: Technology, the Internet, and gambling. Journal of Gambling Studies, 12, 461–469.

Tyndale, R.F. (2003). Genetics of alcohol use and tobacco use in humans. Annals of Medicine, 35(2), 94–121.

Walters, G. D. (2002). The heritability of alcohol use and dependence: A meta-analysis of behavior genetic research. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 28, 557–584.

The need in deed: Is ‘loss of control’ always a consequence of addiction?

I recently published a potentially controversial paper in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry arguing that loss of control may not always be a natural consequence of addiction. Research into addiction has a long history although there has always been much debate as to what the key components of addiction are. Irrespective of the theory and model of addiction, most theorizing on addiction tends to assume (implicitly or explicitly) that ‘loss of control’ is central (if not fundamental) to addiction. My paper challenges such notions by arguing that there are a minority of individuals who appear to be addicted to a behaviour (i.e., work) but do not necessarily appear to display any loss of control.

Research into many different types of addiction has shown that addicts are not a homogeneous group, and this may also have implications surrounding control and loss of control. Many years ago, in my 1995 book Adolescent Gambling, I argued that in relation to problem gambling there appear to be at least two sub-types of addiction – primary addictions and secondary addictions. I defined primary addictions as those in which a person is addicted to the activity itself, and that individuals love engaging in the activity whether it is gambling, sex or playing video games. Here, the behaviour is primarily engaged in to get aroused, excited, and/or to get a ‘buzz’ or ‘high’. I defined secondary addictions as those in which the person engages in the behaviour as a way of dealing with other underlying problems (i.e., the addiction is symptomatic of other underlying problems). Here the behaviour is primarily engaged in to escape, to numb, to de-stress, and/or to relax.

Therapeutically, I argued that it is easier to treat secondary addictions. My argument was that if the underlying problem is addressed (e.g., depression), the addictive behaviour should diminish and/or disappear. Primary addicts appear to be more resistant to treatment because they genuinely love the behaviour (even though it may be causing major problems in their life). Furthermore, the very existence of primary addictions challenges the idea that loss of control is fundamental to definitions and concepts of addiction. Clearly, people with primary addictions have almost no desire to stop or cut down their behaviour of choice because it is something they believe is life affirming and central to the identity of who they are. But does lack of a desire to stop the behaviour they love prevent ‘loss of control’ from occurring? Arguably it does, particularly when examining the research on workaholism.

I have popularized the ‘addiction components model’, particularly in relation to behavioural addiction (i.e., non-chemical addictions that do not involve the ingestion of a psychoactive substance). The addiction components model operationally defines addictive activity as any behaviour that features what I believe are the six core components of addiction (i.e., salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, conflict and relapse, and which I outlined in my very first blog on this site)

One of the observations that can be made by examining these six criteria is that ‘loss of control’ is not one of the necessary components for an individual to be defined as addicted to an activity. Although I acknowledge that ‘loss of control’ can occur in many (if not most) addicts, loss of control is subsumed within the ‘conflict’ component rather than a core component in and of itself. The main reason for this is because I believe that there are some addictions – particularly behavioural addictions such as workaholism – where the person may be addicted without necessarily losing control. However, such a claim depends on how ‘loss of control’ is defined and the highlights the ambiguity in our standard understanding of addiction (i.e., the ambiguity of control as ability/means versus control as goal/end).

When theorists define and conceptualise ‘loss of control’ as applied to addictive behaviour, it typically refers to (i) the loss of the ability to regulate and control the behaviour, (ii) the loss of ability to choose between a range of behavioural options, and/or (iii) the lack of resistance to prevent engagement in the behaviour. In some behaviours such as workaholism and anorexia, the person arguably tries to achieve control in some way (i.e., over their work in the case of a workaholic, or over food in the case of an anorexic). However, this in itself is not a counter-example to the idea that addiction is a ‘loss of control’ if workaholics and anorexics have lost the ability to control other aspects of their day-to-day lives in their pursuit of control over work or food (i.e., there is a difference between control as the goal/end of behaviour, and control as an ability/means.

There is an abundance of research indicating that one of the key indicators of workaholism (alongside such behaviours as high performance standards, long working hours, working outside of work hours, and personal identification with the job) is that of control of work activities. In a recent paper I wrote with my colleague Dr. Maria Karanika-Murray in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, we also noted that the need for control is high among workaholics, and as a consequence they have difficulty in disengaging from work leading to many other negative detrimental effects on their life such as relationship breakdowns. Even some of the instruments developed to assess workaholism utilize questions concerning the need to be in control.

There are also other studies that suggest some workaholics do not experience a ‘loss of control’ in the traditional sense that is used elsewhere in the addiction literature. For instance, in a 2004 issue of the Journal of Organizational Change Management, Dr. Peter Mudrack reported that two particular aspects of obsessive-compulsive personality (i.e., being stubborn and highly responsible) were predictive of workaholism. A very recent paper by Dr. Ayesha Tabassum and Dr. Tasnuva Rahman in the International Journal of Research Studies in Psychology noted that perfectionist workaholics experience an overbearing need for control and are very scrupulous and detail-oriented about their work. Unusually among addictions, workaholics usually have no desire to reduce or regulate their work behaviour (i.e., there is no ambivalence or conflicting desire for them). In this instance, there is no evidence of ‘loss of control’ as traditionally understood, because if they had ambivalent or conflicting desires, they would change their behaviour (i.e., reduce the amount of time they spend working). Although not an exhaustive list of studies, those mentioned here appear to indicate that some workaholics appear to be more in control than not in control.

When the addiction is primary, the goal/end of the behaviour is desired and/or endorsed without ambivalence by the addict. In these situations (as in some cases of workaholism), there is no evidence for loss of control, because no (failed) attempts are made by the addict to alter their behaviour. However, this could arguably still be compatible with the claim that there is loss of control in the sense of ability and/or means, because, if the workaholic tried to work less (or work in a less controlling way) because they started to recognize ill effects the addictive behaviour was having on their personal life, then they may fail to do so. Therefore, the lack of evidence is indicative rather than conclusive.

However, one of the reasons that workaholism raises interesting theoretical and conceptual issues concerning the loss of control is that it is an example of an addiction where the goal/end is itself a form of control (i.e., control over their productivity/outputs, control over others, control over time-keeping, etc.). Unlike many other addictions, such behaviour is not impulsive and/or chaotic but carefully planned and executed. So this raises the question, in what sense is workaholism a loss of control, understood in the typical way, as ability/means to the behaviour’s goal/end? In some cases of workaholism, there is no evidence that the workaholic lacks control over this goal/end, as they do not try to change their behaviour (and thus cannot fail to do so).

It could be argued – and this is admittedly speculative – that ‘loss of control’ as is traditionally understood appears to have a greater association with secondary addiction (i.e., where an individual’s addiction is symptomatic of other underlying problems) than primary (or ‘happy’ or ‘positive’) addiction (i.e., where an individual feels totally rewarded by the activity despite the negative consequences). Such a speculation has good face validity but needs empirical testing. However, a complicating factor is the fact that my studies on adolescent gambling addicts have demonstrated that some individuals start out as primary addicts but became secondary addicts over time. Again, this suggests that control (and loss of it) may be something that changes its nature over time.

In essence, workaholics appear to make poor choices and/or decisions that have wide-reaching detrimental consequences in their lives. However, at present we lack evidence that (should they decide otherwise) they would be unable to work in a more healthy way. Furthermore, and equally as important, the nature of workaholic behaviour is not impulsive and chaotic, but carefully planned and executed. This is particularly striking among some workaholics, because as I have noted, it is an addiction that for some individuals they continue to work happily despite objectively negative consequences (e.g., relationship breakdowns, neglect of parental duties, etc.). What the empirical research on workaholism suggests is that it is an example of an addiction in which the problem is better characterized as loss of prudence rather than loss of control, as traditionally understood.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Andreassen, C.S., Griffiths, M.D., Hetland, J. & Pallesen, S. (2012). Development of a Work Addiction Scale. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 53, 265-272.

Andreassen, C. S., Torsheim, T., Brunborg, G. S., & Pallesen, S. (2012) Development of a Facebook addiction scale. Psychological Reports, 110, 501-517.

Griffiths, M.D. (1995). Adolescent Gambling. London: Routledge.

Griffiths, M.D.  (2005). A ‘components’ model of addiction within a biopsychosocial framework. Journal of Substance Use, 10, 191-197.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Workaholism: A 21^st century addiction. The Psychologist: Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 24, 740-744.

Griffiths, M.D. & Karanika-Murray, M. (2012). Contextualising over-engagement in work: Towards a more global understanding of workaholism as an addiction. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 1(3), 87-95.

Mudrack, P.E. (2004). Job involvement, obsessive-compulsive personality traits, and workaholic behavioral tendencies. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 17, 490-508.

Mudrack, P.E. & Naughton, T.J. (2001) The assessment of workaholism as behavioral tendencies: Scale development and preliminary empirical testing. International Journal of Stress Management, 8, 93-111.

Tabassum, A. & Rahman, T. (2012). Gaining the insight of workaholism, its nature and its outcome: A literature review. International Journal of Research Studies in Psychology, 2, 81-92.

A word to the wise: A brief look at obsessive cruciverbalism

“Sixty-four million people do it at least once a week. Nabokov wrote about it. Bill Clinton even did it in the White House” (Marc Romano, 2005).

I’m sure many of you reading this opening quote will think that it refers to sexual infidelity but it doesn’t. I was also deliberately obtuse in the title of today’s blog to throw you off the scent of what today’s blog is about. Well, to put some of you out of your misery, the topic under the microscope today is crossword puzzles. For those who don’t know, a cruciverbalist is an enthusiast of word games (especially of crosswords). According to Michael Quinion in his excellent World Wide Words website:

“[The word ‘cruciverbalist’] seems to have appeared in English about 1980 (the first reference I can find is to the Compleat Cruciverbalist of 1981 by Stan Kurzban and Mel Rosen, subtitled ‘how to solve, compose and sell crossword puzzles for fun and profit’). However, Stan Kurzban tells me that Mel Rosen had encountered the word some years earlier in the title of a directory of crossword puzzle notables that was not widely circulated. Whatever its origin, cruciverbalist has spread into the wider language as a result of their efforts to the extent that it now appears in some larger recent US dictionaries. The word is a modern mock-Latin invention, being a translation back into Latin of the English crossword (using Latin crucis, cross, as in words like cruciform, plus verbum, word, as in verbose or verbatim).There is also cruciverbalism, for the art of crossword compilation or crossword fandom generally, but that is much rarer”.

The opening quote comes from Marc Romano’s 2005 book The Crossword Obsession: The History and Lore of the World’s Most Popular Pastime who asserted that: “the crossword puzzle has arguably been our national obsession since its birth almost a century ago”. Seeing the word ‘obsessive’ was enough to make me think it was a topic worthy of consideration of writing a blog about it (especially when reading the accompanying blurb for Romano’s book):

“Saying this is a book about puzzles is to tell only half the story. It is also an explanation into what crosswords tell us about ourselves – about the world we live in, the cultures that nurture us, and the different ways we think and learn. If you’re a puzzler, Crossworld will enthrall you. If you have no idea why your spouse send so much time filling letters into little white squares, Crossworld will tell you – and with luck, save your marriage”.

On a personal note, I ought to declare a vested self-interest in that I been doing cryptic crosswords since I was taught to do them by my father in my mid-teens. In the early 1990s until the late 1990s I did (or rather attempted) The Guardian’s cryptic crossword almost every day (the birth of my daughter put a stop to daily crosswords and what little spare time I had outside of my job). On the way to a conference in Bristol in 1998, I had a race on the train with one of my departmental colleagues (Bob Rotheram) as to who could complete that day’s Guardian crossword first. I even got a letter in The Guardian (November 26, 2002) about a crossword puzzle set by my favourite crossword setter (John Galbraith Graham, better known under his crossword compiling pseudonym ‘Araucaria’). Many of the clues in the prize crossword I had just completed related to an anagram of the word ‘presbyterians’. The letter I had published said:

“I don’t know what is worse. The fact that some clues in the prize crossword related to Britney Spears and her hit singles, or the sad fact that I knew the answers to them all!”

The fact that ‘presbyterians’ is an anagram of singer ‘Britney Spears’ I found amazing (although my favourite anagram in one of Araucaria’s crosswords was ‘synthetic cream’ being an anagram of the football team ‘Manchester City’). I am also a huge fan of crossword homophones (words that are pronounced the same but are completely different in definition and meaning) and on which most forms of punning are based. This includes many of my blog titles such as my articles on body dysmorphic disorder (‘Flaw management’), biting fetishes (‘Bit sighs’), pandrogyny (‘A gender setting’), and gambling spending (‘Stake and chips’), as well as my blogs on the psychology of revulsion (‘Disgust discussed’), Exploding Head Syndrome (‘A noise that annoys’) and Jerusalem Syndrome (‘Wholly holy’). I love crosswords so much that I even have an all-time favourite clue (“Late opening” [seven letters]; Answer: AUTOPSY). Total genius!

Doing crosswords appears to be a very popular hobby. According to Dean Olsher in his 2009 book, From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords, about 50 million American people do crosswords. Olsher says that for some, crosswords are a pastime and for others it is a form of escapism (suggesting that crosswords may produce psychological feelings and motivations associated with addictive behaviours). Olsher noted that some people like the film director Alfred Hitchcock “didn’t get” crosswords. Hitchcock told film actor, director and screenwriter Francois Truffaut that:

“I don’t really approve of whodunits because they’re rather like a jigsaw or crossword puzzle. No emotion. You simply wait to found out who committed the murder”

Olsher claims Hitchcock fell prey to a common false dichotomy that thinking and feeling are an either/or proposition. Olsher claims they are inextricable, and that cerebral and emotional satisfaction are not at odds with each other. For Olsher, crosswords can be an exhilarating experience and akin to seated meditation. However, he also notes that doing crosswords (based on his own personal experience) could be an addiction:

“It is more honest, though, to think of crosswords as a habit, like smoking. It’s just something to do, every day, because it’s there. When finished with a puzzle, I don’t pump my fists in triumph or congratulate myself for my perseverance. I solve crosswords because they bring on a feeling of emptiness, and paradoxically, that feeling seems to fill a hole deep inside. It’s not a release, it’s not a flushing out, although both those terms grasp at some aspect of it. Norman Mailer said that for him, solving the crossword every day was like combing his brain. This simile is strong because it has nothing to do with usual mental fitness. It’s not about intelligence or holding onto memory. Crosswords bring about a focused state of mind, the elusive ‘flow state’. Then there are days when I decide that this is all an elaborate self-deception. That the puzzle is indeed an escape mechanism. The crossword addiction is not a metaphor but a destructive literal truth”

I was surprised to find there has been quite a lot of academic research on the benefits of doing crosswords (although very little on whether doing crosswords can be obsessive and/or addictive). However, the psychologist Dr. Howard Rachlin does mention in a number of his writings on addiction that there are many activities that could be described as ‘positive addictions’ including “listening to classical music, collecting stamps, exercise, reading novels, doing crossword puzzles”. Dr. Rachlin also noted in a paper published in a 2002 issue of the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS):

“Patterns of behavior may be maintained without extrinsic rewards. For example, on a relatively small scale, activities such as solving jigsaw or crossword puzzles are valuable in themselves. People, like me, who like to do crossword puzzles, find value in the whole act of doing the puzzle. When I sit down on a Sunday morning to do the puzzle I am not beginning a laborious act that will be rewarded only when it is completed. Yet, despite the lack of extrinsic and intrinsic reward for putting in that last particular letter, completing the puzzle is, for me, a necessary part of its value. Like listening to symphonies, the pattern is valuable only as a whole. Extrinsic rewards may initially put together the elements of these patterns but the patterns, once formed, are maintained by their intrinsic value. The cost of breaking the pattern is the loss of this value – even that of the parts already performed”.

However, Rachlin is not without his critics. In responses to the BBS paper, Dr. Stephen Kaplan and Dr. Raymond De Young claimed that Rachlin’s interpretation of intrinsic motivation as arising from a string of habits was far from convincing. More specifically, they noted that the “fascination with crossword and jigsaw puzzles seems far more likely to be an expression of the human inclination to solve problems, a tendency humans share with nonhuman primates”. Another response to the BBS paper by Dr. Thomas R. Zentall claimed that the concept of intrinsic reinforcement is needed to explain the variety of behaviour that has no extrinsic material or social reward, such as crossword puzzle solving. He argues that:

“Intrinsic reinforcers are difficult to assess. They are what [are] left once you have ruled out extrinsic reinforcers, and in the case of humans, typically we assess them by means of verbal behavior (e.g., ‘I just like doing it’). But this sort of definition can easily become circular, especially when we are talking about behavioral patterns that are themselves not clearly defined. One can hypothesize that extrinsic reinforcers become internalized, but that does not explain, it only describes”.

Doing crosswords may even be of psychological and practical benefit. For instance, Dr. Mike Murphy and Dr. Roisin Cunningham published a paper last year in the Irish Journal of Psychology claiming that: “a crossword a day improves verbal fluency”. More specifically they examined ‘semantic verbal fluency’ (SVF) an important contributor to general communication ability. In their study, 34 final year students completed a daily crossword for one month and compared this to a control group of 40 students who did not do any crosswords. Their results indicated that the crossword group experienced greater improvement in SVF than the control group. They concluded that doing simple crosswords may be a relatively straightforward way improving SVF among students who are about to enter the job market and need good transferable skills.

Dr. Graham Pluck and Dr. Helen Johnson writing in a 2011 issue of Education Science and Psychology claim that stimulating curiosity (with activities such as crosswords) can enhance learning. They drew on the work of Dr. Ludwig Lowenstein who noted that many features of human behaviour appear counter-productive on the surface but are not. For instance:

“Lowenstein discusses the interest that many people have in completing puzzles such as crosswords, or why soap operas end on cliff-hangers. According to the theory, the information gaps that people are exposed to act to motivate them to obtain the missing information, either by persevering to complete the puzzle or tuning in to watch the next episode of the soap opera”.

Another study led by Dr. Joshua Jackson and published in a 2012 issue of the journal Psychology and Aging claimed doing crosswords could change some aspects of personality among old-aged people. More specifically, they examined whether an intervention aimed to increase cognitive ability in older adults (i.e., doing crossword and Sudoku puzzles) affected the personality trait of openness to experience (i.e., being imaginative and intellectually oriented). In their study, old-aged adults completed a 4-month program in inductive reasoning training that included weekly crossword and Sudoku puzzles. They were then assessed continually over the following 30 weeks. Their findings showed that those who did crossword and Sudoku puzzles increased their openness scores compared to the control group. The authors claimed that this study is one of the very first to demonstrate that personality traits can change through non-psychopharmocological interventions.

Although there are a number of people online who have confessed as to being ‘crossword addicts’, (including the US rock singer and record producer Todd Rundgren in a June 2013 interview with Uncut magazine), I have yet to find any empirical evidence that it is negatively detrimental in people’s lives. For most, even those who describe themselves as ‘crossword obsessives’, it is a behaviour that adds to and enhances their lives.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Amende, C. (2001). The Crossword Obsession: The History and Lore of the World’s Most Popular Pastime. New York: Berkeley.

Davis, T.M., Shepherd, B. & Zwiefelhofer, T. (2009). Reviewing for exams: Do crossword puzzles help in the success of student learning? Journal of Effective Teaching, 9, 4-10.

Jackson, J.J., Hill, P.L., Payne, B.R., Roberts, B.W., & Stine-Morrow, E.A. L. (2012). Can an old dog learn (and want to experience) new tricks? Cognitive training increases openness to experience in older adults. Psychology and Aging, 27, 286-292.

Kaplan, S. & De Young, R. (2002). Toward a better understanding of prosocial behavior: The role of evolution and directed attention Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 263-264.

Murphy, M. & Cunningham, R.K. (2102). A crossword a day improves verbal fluency: A report of an intervention study. Irish Journal of Psychology, 133, 193-198.

Olsher, D. (2009). From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Pluck, G. & Johnson, H. (2011). Stimulating curiosity to enhance learning. Education Science and Psychology, 2(19), 24-31.

Rachlin, H. (2002). Altruism and selfishness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 239-250.

Rachlin, H. (2003). Economic concepts in the behavioural study of addiction. In R.E. Vuchinich & N. Heather (Eds.), Choice, Behavioural Economics and Addiction. (pp.129-149). Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press.

Romano, M. (2005). Crossworld: One Man’s Journey into America’s Crossword Obsession. Blackpool: Broadway.

Underwood, G., Deihim, C. & Batt, V. (1994). Expert performance in solving word puzzles: From retrieval cues to crossword clues. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 8, 531-548.

Zentall, T.R. (2002). A potentially testable mechanism to account for altruistic behavior Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 282.

Animal magic: The weird and wonderful world of the ‘bronies’

Over the years, I have been contacted a number of times by the national British media asking for a soundbite about whether someone can become ‘addicted’ to a particular television programme. Some academics have even carried out scientific research. For instance, back in 1997, Dr. Sandy Wolfson (University of Northumbria, UK) carried out a survey amongst Star Trek fans (so-called ‘Trekkies’). I saw her present her paper at a British Psychological Society conference and it got a lot of national press publicity (‘Star Trek is an addictive enterprise’, ‘Trekkies ‘hooked like addicts’, ‘Star Trek worse than heroin?’). However, as far as I can ascertain, Dr. Wolfson never formally published her findings in an academic journal. At the time, she reported (to the press) that:

“Some of these people are totally immersed in the activity. [The] research shows that about 5 to 10 percent of (Trek) fans meet the psychological criteria of addiction. They show withdrawal symptoms such as agitation and frustration if they miss an episode and develop higher tolerance levels, so they need increasing doses. They see so many positive benefits psychologically from being a Star Trek fan. Loads have met friends and even spouses through Star Trek. People who are normally a bit tongue-tied find it a good source of conversation. People also feel they get a lot of intellectual benefits. It’s a very moral kind of show. Each episode has some kind of ethical dilemma which gives people a lot to think about. I would use the term positive addiction for addictions where people feel they have a positive effect. Star Trek does seem to be something people feel has a positive influence on them and society. It makes them happy”

One story that caught my eye recently was the story of 32-year old Luke Allen, an unemployed computer programmer from Albuquerque (New Mexico, US) who “self-medicates by watching animated ponies have magical adventures”. And he’s not alone as a feature in Wired magazine noted that there was a whole adult male fan community – so called ‘bronies’ (‘bro ponies’) – that are ‘fixated’ on daily watching of the cartoon My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. Luke Allen noted:

“First we can’t believe this show is so good, then we can’t believe we’ve become fans for life, then we can’t believe we’re walking down the pink aisle at Toys R Us or asking for the girl’s toy in our Happy Meal. Then we can’t believe our friends haven’t seen it yet, then we can’t believe they’re becoming bronies too. This weird alchemy that [the show’s creator] Lauren Faust tapped into when she set out to make the show accessible to kids and their parents hooks into the male geek’s reptilian hindbrain and removes a lifetime’s behavioural indoctrination against pink. As a person with Asperger syndrome, I learned more about theory of mind, friendships and social interactions from this season than I had in the previous 31 years of life.”

Most of us have favourite television shows that we don’t like to miss (The Sopranos, Prison Break and A Very Peculiar Practice being among my favourites). However, My Little Pony appears to be (for many people) an “unlikely object of fanboy love”. The Wired article reported that:

“Since the show debuted [in 2010] on cable channel Hub TV, it’s attracted a growing number of male fanatics. Their love of the show is internet neo-sincerity at its best: In addition to watching the show, these teenage, twenty- and thirtysomething guys are creating pony art, posting fan videos on YouTube and feeding threads on 4chan (and their own chan,Ponychan). They also risk life, limb and being trolled to death on the /co/ board to fawn over a small gaggle of ponies with names like Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash”.

Another self-confessed ‘brony’, Henri Yount, a 20-year-old male from Virginia (US) who gets hundreds of thousands of hits on TouTube for his homemade My Little Pony mash-up videos said:

“I believe the fan base for this new generation of [My Little Pony] is one of the most amazing/unexpected things to come out of the internet in a long while. When I say ‘amazing,’ I’m referring to the crazy amount of content and the hard-working people who produce material every day, which I haven’t seen in many other fan bases”.

I had a quick look on YouTube myself and couldn’t believe the number of videos that have been posted and (more unbelievably) how many views they get (yes, I’m jealous). There’s also lots of artwork on the deviantArt website (around 100,000 pieces of art), and there are also a number of dedicated websites (Equestria Daily and PonyChan) being the most popular. Equestria Daily is run by another ‘brony’ (Shaun, a 23-year old male from Arizona, US). Shaun was also quoted in the Wired article and said:

“If someone were to have told me I’d be writing a pony blog seven months ago, I would have called them insane [but] it has, obviously, evolved way past that. The brony hub gets roughly 175,000 page views per day now, up from about 20,000 just a few months ago. I honestly expected everything to die down a bit (mainly so I could finally get a break!), but it seems like the fans are more ravenous than ever for more content”.

According to the many fanboys, My Little Pony’s appeal is down to good illustration, good stories, excellent characters or, as Luke Allen puts it, a “perfect storm of ’80s nostalgia and cultural irony”.

It will come as no surprise that there is no empirical research on bronies and the only academic paper I found in my research was one by Walton Wood (in a 2011 issue of the journal Image Text: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies) although I personally found the media articles more enlightening on the phenomena than Wood’s essay. I seriously doubt that bronies will ever be the focus of mainstream psychological research although studying bronies may be useful as an adjunct to the psychological study of fanship (something that I briefly covered in a previous blog on ‘fanorexia’ and whether being a ‘fanatic’ can be addictive).

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Angel, R. (2012). Adult male My Little Pony fans? Bronies are true rebels. The Guardian, October 1. Located at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/01/my-little-pony-bronies-rebels

Hoffberger, C. (2011). Becoming a brony: 1 man’s foray into ‘My Little Pony’ fandom. The Daily Dot, October 12. Located at: http://www.dailydot.com/society/becoming-brony-my-little-pony-fandom/

Lelis, L. (1998). Normality…the final frontier. Psychology Today, January 1. Located at: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199802/normality-the-final-frontier

Swain, H. (1997). Drive warps Trekkies. Times Higher Education, June 13. Located at: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=100394&sectioncode=26

Watercutter, A. (2011). My Little Pony corrals unlikely fanboys known as ‘Bronies’. Wired, September 6. Located at: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/06/bronies-my-little-ponys/

Wikipedia (2012). ‪My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fandom‬. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Little_Pony:_Friendship_Is_Magic_fandom

Wood, W. (2011). The Empirical Twilight: A Pony’s Guide to Science & Anarchism. Image Text: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, 6(1). Located at: http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v6_1/wood/

Hello, good buy: Another look at shopping addiction

With only a few shopping days left until Christmas, I thought I would take another (hopefully topical) look at shopping addiction. Earlier this year, the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs published a paper by Dr. Heidi Hartston on the case for shopping as an addiction. She argued that the main factors that contribute to shopping addictions are (i) a hyper-stimulating experience (or an experience that was hyper-stimulating during initial exposures); (ii) easy accessibility or a high likelihood of frequent engagement; and (iii) vulnerability to addiction, which can be genetically present or can be created by neuroadaptation or reward deficiency syndrome.

In the section of her paper on the creation of hyper-stimulating experiences, Hartston claimed that in 1903 when Coca-Cola removed the cocaine out of their product, their marketing research found increasingly sophisticated ways to act on the brain’s reward circuitry by utilizing (i) advertising, (ii) product experience and (iii) packaging. According to Harston:

“Neuromarketing is the use of scientific brain research to potentiate the effectiveness of product marketing. This research uses fMRI brain imaging, EEG, skin moisture levels, heart rate, breathing patterns, eye movement and pupil dilation among other scientific measures. Marketing firms have spent 6.8 billion dollars in research (leading to 117 billion in advertising) learning to maximize the influence that branding, packaging, product placement and ad content can have on shopper decisions to buy. Many neuromarketing studies bypass the conscious adult rational decision-making brain functions to maximize excitement, emotional attachment, brand attachment, reward pathway activation, medial prefrontal identification and oxytocin stimulation, influencing impulsive buying decisions in ways individuals are not aware of or informed about (Robischon 2010)”

She then went on to claim that huge multi-national companies like Disney, Google, Frito-Layand and CBS (as well as large election campaigns) use these neuromarketing techniques to examine reactions by consumers (and voters) to their brands (or candidates) and then alter their advertising strategies accordingly. To support these claims, Hartston notes:

“A few examples of scientifically informed marketing include incorporating the color red (think of the coke can) resulting in attributions of intelligence and power to owning a product or to sales people (Elliot & Aarts 2011). ‘Sneaker radio’, a muzak-like soundtrack designed for use in athletic shoe stores, is designed to slow a shopper’s pace through the store and increase impulsive purchases. Studies using fMRI scans can identify which ad strategies trigger the consumer to strongly desire a product, saying they are ‘itching to buy’ (Thompson 2003). Bypassing interaction with the cortex and maximizing stimulation of emotional and reward areas can create hyperstimulating and difficult to resist marketing and can sabotage a vulnerable shopper’s intentions and efforts to resist buying”.

Hartston also makes further interesting observations in how commercial companies can hyper-stimulate shopping by exaggerating the sense of importance to the buying of products, or to the process of shopping itself. Shopping is a behaviour that has the capacity to become a highly rewarding experience. Such rewards can include excitement, identity affirmation, accomplishment, and praise. For a minority, shopaholism may become a difficult behaviour to break. Such observations not only have implications for shopping purchases but also behaviours that I study in my own research such as gambling. In relation to shopping addiction and increased accessibility, Hartston noted that:

“Behaviors may not reach the intense level of [dopamine] hyperstimulation that drugs do when each separate exposure is compared. However, because addictive behaviors are more easily accessible and more frequently engaged in than drug use (more exposures per day or week), the net effect of many more frequent exposures can make an addictive behavior hyperstimulating enough to have similar behavioral and physiological consequences as drugs”.

Comparing two different drug addictions – nicotine addiction and heroin addiction – she notes that nicotine clearly has a much weaker reward stimulation (per exposure) but can be equally addictive as heroin. The key difference is obviously the frequency as smokers will continually smoke cigarettes throughout the day whereas the number of times a heroin addict will take heroin during the day will be considerably less. In essence, Hartston argued:

“More exposures means more pairings of use and mild hyperstimulation, more encoding of the positive associations with smoking in memory, more consistent hyperstimulation of DA reward areas and more ease in increasing use. Due to its ease of availability, someone who tries smoking is more likely to become addicted than someone who tries heroin (Hilts 2009)”.

Relating this to shopping, Hartston makes the point that shopping is no longer something that is time limited by closed shops. The internet has brought the potential for 24/7 shopping. As with other activities with the potential for addiction (e.g., gambling, video gaming, sex), the internet has brought easy access, high availability, convenience, anonymity, dishinibition, and escape. As Hartston rightly asserts:

“A shopper can browse or purposefully seek target items during many stolen moments each day, from almost any location, or for extended amounts of time whenever a break may occur. Impulses to buy can be acted on immediately, without the protective time delay there used to be. And the steps to completing a purchase have become shortened, with credit card numbers already saved and one-click purchasing options additionally catering to impulsivity”.

Finally, Hartston argues that brain changes associated with Reward Deficiency Syndrome make it harder to stop the behaviors like excessive shopping. There is growing evidence that both chemical and behavioural addictions not only trigger changes in dopamine reward physiology “but also to its cortical connections, thereby impairing self-regulation”. Any person is responsible for their own behaviour but Harston argues that changes to the brain’s physiology makes it harder for vulnerable and susceptible people to control such behaviours. As Harston points out:

“Actions ‘preferred’ (valued at higher importance) by hyperstimulated striatal neurons are more likely to occur despite the addict’s conscious insight (Lau & Glimcher 2008; Hikosaka et al. 2008; Hikosaka, Nakamura & Nakahara 2006). This means that when desires become addictions they can have an overriding command over behavior and decision making, which is difficult to interrupt even in the presence of insight or higher goals. Addicted brains also show less age-related expansion of white matter, reflecting a loss of learning capacity and difficulty making new choices, further inhibiting an addict’s control over impulsive reward seeking behaviors (Goldstein & Volkow 2002). People who find themselves in the trap of addiction, whether to a drug or a behavior like shopping, need to be able to access effective interventions and support in order to stop the problematic behavior and prevent relapses”

Shopping appears to be the latest normal everyday behaviour (along with behaviours like exercise, eating and sex) to have been pathologized. However, (as I noted in my previous blog on shopaholism), there does seem to be some empirical evidence that a small minority of people appear to display addictive-like symptoms as a result of their shopping behaviour. Dr. Harston has done a good job in pointing out of the biological and situational reasons for how and why such addictions may develop.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, U 

Further reading

Elliot, A. & Aarts, H. (2011). Perception of the color red enhances the force and velocity of motor output. Emotion, 11, 445–49.

Goldstein, R. & Volkow, N. (2002). Drug addiction and its underlying neurobiological basis: Neuroimaging evidence for the involvement of the frontal cortex. American Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 1642–52.

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Internet abuse and internet addiction in the workplace. Journal of Worplace Learning, 7, 463-472.

Hartston, H. (2012). The case for compulsive shopping as an addiction. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 44, 64–67.

Hikosaka, O., Nakamura, K., & Nakahara, H. (2006). Basal ganglia orient eyes to reward. Journal of Neurophysiology, 95, 567–84.

Hikosaka, O., Bromberg-Martin, E., Hong, S. & Matsumoto, M. (2008). New insights on the subcortical representation of reward. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, April 18, 203–08.

Hilts, P. (1994). Is nicotine addictive? It depends on whose criteria you use. New York Times. August 2.

Lau, B. & Glimcher, P. (2008). Value representations in the primate striatum during matching behavior. Neuron, 58, 451–63.

Robischon, N. (2010.) Neuromarketing the 2010 elections: Scoring campaign ads. Fast Company. Nov 5. Available at http://www.fastcompany.com/1700207/campaign-ads-and-neuromarketing

Thompson, C. 2003. There’s a sucker born in every medial prefrontal cortex. New York Times Magazine. October 26, 54–65.

Widyanto, L. & Griffiths, M.D. (2006). Internet addiction: A critical review. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 4, 31-51.

Yearning power: A beginner’s guide to obsessive love

In a previous blog, I briefly looked at to what extent love can be addictive. However, recent history has seen the rise of the term ‘obsessive love’.  Obsessive love is typically associated with unrequited love, but there are relationships in which individuals could be said to obsess over each other and relationships in which one member obsesses over their partner. According to Dr. Helen Fisher in her 2005 book Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, some people believe that all love is obsessive as it can be characterised by feelings of exhilaration, and intrusive, obsessive thoughts about the object of one’s affection. One common view is that love and relationships are a specialized kind of mutual addiction.

It may be useful to categorise obsessive love as an addiction because the behaviour is often similar. It is possible to see the resemblance between the definitions given for obsessions and addictions. In 2003, Griffin and Tyrrell stated that “obsessions are thoughts, images or impulses that cause marked degrees of anxiety or distress”. Similarly, Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky in their 1975 book Love and Addiction defined addiction as “a single overwhelming involvement with one thing that serves to cut a person off from life, to close him or her off to experience, to debilitate him, to make him less open, free, and positive in dealing with the world”. From this it is obvious that there is a resemblance in the fact that both can be debilitating. However, though it seems that certain aspects of obsessive love resemble a behavioural addiction, it has not been fully investigated.

Current literature uses the term ‘obsessive love’ to describe erotomania or love addiction. Obsessive love can therefore be seen as an umbrella term that covers subgroups such as erotomanics and love addicts, although no literature has been found that uses both concepts within the context of obsessive love. A common conception of obsessive love is generally that of a person being infatuated with a particular individual. However, another category includes those who feel the need to be in love generally. These are commonly known as ‘love addicts’. A more medically accepted category of obsessive love is that of erotomania.

Erotomania is a ‘rare delusional disorder’ also known as De Clerembault’s Syndrome. This type of obsessive lover develops a fixation on a person and becomes convinced that they are having a romantic relationship regardless of attempts by the recipient to convince them otherwise. Although erotomania and love addiction are dealt with as individual disorders, they share a number of characteristics. Obsessive love is seen predominantly in women although it has been realised that there are male sufferers. Also, more specifically, erotomania usually occurs in unmarried women that are isolated and lonely and have low self-esteem. However, recent studies have shown the disorder to be present in men who have a history of substance abuse or mental illness.

Obsessive lovers lack the ability to develop and are obsessed with impossible needs and unrealistic expectations. They engage in desperate hopes and unending fears. Obsessive lovers often have a past history of mental illness and/or a criminal record. Erotomania is also often associated with other mental disorders, in particular paranoid schizophrenia. Only ten percent of those that suffer erotomania do not suffer any other forms of mental illness. Typically the recipient is often higher in social status – often a boss or a celebrity. Symptoms of this form of obsessive love include delusions of passion followed by delusions of persecution. The individual creates reasons as to why the recipient cannot be with them such as their job or shyness. The person also believes that the recipient is more in love with them than vice versa.

Obsessive love can take place both in and out of a relationship. It can be a past partner, a friend, an acquaintance or even a stranger. Characteristics shared by all types of obsessive love include addictive personalities and low self-esteem. Obsessive lovers also have a tendency for violence and self-destruction. A person with such an obsession is likely to avoid change, and is typically dependent with a need for security. As this disorder is of an obsessive nature, the love the person feels is not particularly intimate. It is often the case that the love interest is the biggest thing in their life and so they dedicate lots of time to it.

Generally, the obsessed person’s life revolves around the person they are obsessed with. Whether in a relationship or not, the happiness of the obsessed is a direct result of the actions of the love object. As a result of this, the obsessed may beg to be told of how to make the other person happy so that they become the person the love object would want them to be. Obsessive lovers will go to great lengths to achieve or maintain the love of the love interest. Behaviour can become unpleasant for the recipient. Such actions include obscene phone calls, criminal damage or even physical violence and stalking. Their behaviour may necessitate the interest of the law.

This is frequently an occupational hazard for celebrities. In 1995, Madonna was stalked by Robert Hoskins. The man suffered from erotomania and believed that she was his wife. In an attempt to see his ‘wife’ he gained access to her home and assaulted a security guard. He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. There are always fans that take their love for their idol into obsession.

Stalking is clearly a form of obsessive behaviour, and it has been found that those patients who have been stalked have described it as ‘psychological rape’. This can only further illustrate the devastating consequences of obsessive love. Stalking has even been given the clinical term ‘obsessional following’, and can be defined as the wilful, malicious and repeated following and harassing of another person. There is no single stalker profile and no two research centres can agree on what to call different types of stalkers.  The only exception is erotomania. This is the only psychiatric diagnosis routinely associated with stalking.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Bogerts, B. (2005). Delusional jealousy and obsessive love – causes and forms. MMW Fortschritte der Medizin, 147(6), 28-9.

Debbelt, P. & Assion, H.J. (2001). Paranoia erotica (de Clerambault syndrome) in affective disorder. Der Nervenarzt. 72, 879-83.

Fisher, H. (2005). Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Graziano, W.G. & Musser L.M. (1982). The joining and parting of the ways. In Duck, S (Ed.). Personal Relationships 4: Dissolving Personal Relationships (pp.75-106). London: Academic Press.

Kennedy, N., McDonough, M., Kelly, B., & Berrios, G.E. (2002). Erotomania revisited: Clinical course and treatment. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 43, 1-6.

McCann, J.T. (1998). Subtypes of stalking (obsessional following) in adolescence. Journal of Adolescence, 21, 667-75.

Meloy, J. R. (1998). The psychology of stalking: Clinical and Forensic Perspectives. New York: Academic Press.

Orion, D. (1997). I Know You Really Love Me: A Psychiatrist’s Journal of Erotomania, Stalking, and Obsessive Love. London: MacMillan Publishing Company.

Peabody, S. (1994). Addiction to love. California: Celestial Arts.

Peele, S. & Brodsky, A. (1975). Love and Addiction. New York: Taplinger.

Sinclair, H.C, and Frieze, I.H. (2000). Initial courtship behaviour and stalking: how should we draw the line? Violence and Victims. 15(1), 23-40.

Stanbury, A. & Griffiths, M.D. (2007). Obsessive love as an addiction. Psychology Review, 12(3), 2-4.

Die another day: A brief look at ‘addiction to near death’

In previous blogs I have examined both people’s fascination with death and human near death experiences (NDEs). Another aspect to NDEs that I didn’t mention in those articles was the idea of people being “addicted” to NDEs. Arguably, most people’s perceptions of ‘near death addiction’ are probably based on the 1990 US film Flatliners. In that film, a group of five medical students (played by Keifer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, Julia Roberts, Oliver Platt and William Baldwin) attempt to examine whether there is anything beyond death by carrying out experiments into NDEs. Keifer Sutherland’s character (Nelson) is continually made to experience clinical death (i.e., flatlining with no heartbeat) before being brought back to life by his classmates.

This Hollywood portrayal of possible ‘near death addiction’ bears little resemblance to the academic literature – most of which has been written from a psychodynamic perspective – and relates more to continual self-destructive experiences (usually by adolescents or young adults). The concept of ‘addiction to near death’ (ATND) originates from the writings of Dr. Betty Joseph, a distinguished psychoanalytic clinician often lauded as “the psychoanalysts’ psychoanalyst” and known for her work with highly resistant ‘difficult to treat’ patients. Dr. Joseph first wrote about the ‘addiction to near death’ concept in a 1982 issue of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. This form of masochistic pathology was a concept that she found useful when working with psychologically dysfunctional adolescents. As Dr. Janet Shaw noted in a more recent 2012 paper on ATND in the Journal of Child Psychotherapy:

“At [the adolescent] stage of development, there is a tendency for adolescents who are troubled to turn to destructive or self-destructive behaviour, suicidal ideation, self-harm, self-starvation and inappropriate sexual behaviour. This is often profoundly shocking and alarming to others, especially if the young person finds the impact on others pleasurable. [Betty] Joseph described a patient addicted to near death as being caught up in a wish to gain pleasure by destroying both himself and the analytic relationship…[She] described masochistic destruction of the self taking place with libidinal satisfaction, despite much concomitant pain. The masochistic position is deeply addictive and this way of using pain for the purposes of pleasure becomes habitual. She summed this up as, ‘the sheer unequalled sexual delight of the grim masochism’ and described the awful pleasure that is achieved in this way”.

However, as Dr. Shaw rightly points out, not all types of destructive and self-destructive behaviour fall into such a category. In her 1982 paper, Dr. Joseph outlined case studies she had treated psychoanalytically from her private practice. Here, she described the masochistic dynamics of her patients, and how hard it was for them to alter these dynamics and get better. She noted that one of the key aspects of the dynamics she described was that her patients derived immense libidinal satisfaction from engaging in destructive near-death behaviours. More specifically, she wrote:

“There is a very malignant type of self-destructiveness, which we see in a small group of our patients, and which is, I think, in the nature of an addiction – an addiction to near-death. It dominates these patients’ lives; for long periods it dominates the way they bring material to the analysis and the type of relationship they establish with the analyst; it dominates their internal relationships, their so-called thinking, and the way they communicate with themselves. It is not a drive towards a Nirvana type of peace or relief from problems, and it has to be sharply differentiated from this. The picture that these patients present is, I am sure, a familiar one – in their external lives these patients get more and more absorbed into hopelessness and involved in activities that seem destined to destroy them physically as well as mentally, for example, considerable over-working, almost no sleep, avoiding eating properly or secretly over-eating if the need is to lose weight”.

In a 2006 issue of Psychanalytic Psychology, Dr. William Gottdeiner also noted that the ATND is such a strong motive that successful treatment of such individuals is unusually difficult. However, Dr. Gottdeiner asserted that one of the severe weaknesses of Joseph’s writings is that she failed to provide in-depth clinical examples of anyone who had engaged in potentially deadly activities. This, Gottdeiner contended, threatened the validity of the ATND construct. Despite such inherent weaknesses, Gottdeiner still believed the ATND construct had strong face validity (i.e., “there are people who seem to repeatedly engage in potentially lethal behavior, making the ATND construct plausible”). Consequently, Gottdeiner tested the construct validity of ATND on females with substance use disorders (SUDs). His argument was that:

“If individuals who are diagnosed with an SUD are successfully treated and they continue to engage in potentially deleterious behavior, then that finding would support the notion that the individual has an addiction to near-death experiences, and that the individual’s substance abuse was a comorbid disorder”.

Gottdeiner’s paper attempted to validate the ATND construct via secondary analysis “of data from a treatment outcome study of individuals who were in residential therapeutic community treatment for SUDs and who received simultaneous safe-sex education during treatment”. His study findings showed that despite safe-sex education and sexual activity in the therapeutic communities being prohibited, that some of the participants still engaged in risky sexual behaviour (irrespective of whether their sexual partners were HIV-positive or not). Gottdeiner argued that these findings tentatively supported the ATND construct. However, Gottdeiner was the first to admit that his study had inherent weaknesses. As he noted:

“The limitations were: data were from retrospective self-reports [and] contained no baseline measures of sexual activity, safe-sex knowledge, condom use, HIV status; it had no male participants, no specific questions about near-death behavior, nor whether alternative safe-sex activities were practice…The limitations of [the] study are considerable, and some might even argue that the connection between the ATND construct and the data presented herein is too much of a stretch to be scientifically useful…Obviously, stronger data would lead to stronger conclusions. Despite the limitations of this study, the findings should motivate clinicians to more seriously consider the existence of an addiction to near-death in their clients”.

More recently, Dr. Janet Shaw examined the ATND construct through the description and evaluation of an in-depth case study account of an adolescent female (‘Susan’). Her paper explored “the way in which pleasure, which is sadistic and masochistic in nature, is associated with cruelty towards the self or others in adolescence”. Dr. Shaw wrote that it felt as if Susan’s main aim was to torment her. As Shaw reported:

“In addition to suicide threats, similar to those she made in the assessment, she made constant reference to systematically starving herself. She was painfully thin, although not actually anorexic and she was poisoning herself by repeatedly taking paracetamol. Susan’s threats to self-harm had a deeply disturbing quality and she clearly enjoyed making them. There was a wish to punish me, as well as herself, through her phantasised attacks…The case material is an example of an adolescent girl with ‘an addiction to near death’ constituting a dominant way of relating to others. Her relentless and manipulative references to self-harm, suicide and dangerous behaviour at various stages of the work were designed to shock and alarm…Susan’s self-destructive behaviour was also continuing in relation to her self- starvation. She said she took laxatives in an attempt to lose more weight. She was becoming dangerously thin and three years into her psychotherapy an appointment with the referring psychiatrist resulted in a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa”.

This quote doesn’t do justice to the very detailed account that Dr. Shaw provided in her lengthy paper. However, her written account is heartfelt and brutally honest. Shaw concludes that the compelling power of addiction overviewed in Susan’s case mustn’t be underestimated. As she notes:

“The narcissistic idealisation of sadistic and masochistic behaviour offers some protection from fear and terror for the patient, but the consequence is to severely limit capacity for thought and imagination, and to restrict awareness. ‘Addition to near death’ forms a small but significant component of the clinical casework of a child and adolescent psychotherapist: it is hoped that Susan’s case material serves to illuminate the phenomenon further and its technical challenges”.

Whether the clinical case of Susan provides any more evidence for validation for Joseph’s ATND construct than the more empirical work of Gottdeiner is debatable. However, this is certainly a fascinating – if somewhat harrowing – area of clinical and academic work that certainly warrants further empirical examination.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Gottdiener, W.H. (2006). A preliminary test of the Addiction-to-Near-Death construct. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 23, 661-666.

Joseph, B. (1982). Addiction to near death. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 449-456.

Joseph, B. (1988). Addiction to near death. In Bott Spillius, E. (Ed.) Melanie Klein Today (pp.311-323). London and New York: Routledge.

Ryle, A. (1993). Addiction to the death instinct? A critical review of Joseph’s paper ‘Addiction to near death’. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 10, 88–92.

Shaw, J. (2012). Addiction to near death in adolescence. Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 38, 111-129.

Working out: Are Olympic athletes addicted to exercise and/or work?

As someone who has spent over 25 years carrying out research into behavioural addiction, I have published a fair amount on exercise addiction over the years. One question I am often asked when the Olympics comes around is to what extent athletes are addicted to exercise. One of the problems answering this question is that in spite of the widespread usage of the term ‘exercise addiction’ there are many different terminologies that describe excessive exercise syndrome. Such terms include (i) exercise dependence, (ii) obligatory exercising, (iii) exercise abuse, and (iv) compulsive exercise.

In a review on excessive exercise that I co-wrote with colleagues at Eotvos Lorand University (Budapest) and to be published in the journal Substance Use and Misuse, we argued that the term ‘addiction’ is the most appropriate because it incorporates both dependence and compulsion. Based on research carried out internationally, we believe that exercise addiction should be classified within the category of behavioural addictions. The resemblance is evidenced not only in several common symptoms (e.g., salience, mood modification, withdrawal symptoms, tolerance, conflict, relapse, etc.), but also in demographic characteristics, the prognosis of the disorder, co-morbidity, response to treatment, prevalence in the family, and etiology.

However, when it comes to Olympic athletes, we all know that they engage excessively in exercise and spend hours and hours every single day either training and competing. For many Olympians, their whole life is dominated by the activity and may impact on their relationships and family life. But does this mean they are addicted to exercise? In short, no! Why? Because the excessive exercise is clearly a by-product of the activity being their job. I would not call myself an internet addict just because I spend 5-10 hours a day on the internet. My excessive internet use is a by-product of the job I have as an academic. In short, the excessive internet use is functional.

However, just because I don’t believe Olympic athletes are addicted to exercise, it could perhaps be argued that they are addicted to work (and in this case, their work comprises the activity of exercise). I’m often asked what the difference is between a healthy enthusiasm and an addiction. In short, healthy enthusiasms add to life but addictions takes away from it. On this simple criterion, maybe there are some Olympic athletes who are ‘addicted’ to their work.

The term ‘workaholism’ has been around for over 40 years since the publication of Wayne Oates’ 1971 book Confessions of a Workaholic, and has now passed into the public mainstream. Despite four decades of research into workaholism (and like exercise addiction), no single definition or conceptualization of this phenomenon has emerged. Workaholics have been conceptualized in different ways. For instance, workaholics are typically viewed as one (or a combination) of the following:

• Those viewed as hyper-performers
• Those viewed as unhappy and obsessive individuals who do not perform well in their jobs
• Those who work as a way of stopping themselves thinking about their emotional and personal lives
• Those who are over concerned with their work and neglect other areas of their lives.

Some of these may indeed be applied to Olympic athletes (particularly the reference to ‘hyper-performers’ and the fact that other areas of their lives may be neglected in pursuit of the ultimate goal). Some authors note that there is a behavioural component and a psychological component to workaholism. The behavioural component comprises working excessively hard (i.e., a high number of hours per day and/or week), whereas the psychological (dispositional) component comprises being obsessed with work (i.e., working compulsively and being unable to detach from work. Again, these behavioural and psychological components could potentially be applied to Olympic athletes.

There are also those scholars who differentiate between positive and negative forms of workaholism. For instance, some view workaholism as both a negative and complex process that eventually affects the person’s ability to function properly. In contrast, others highlight the workaholics who are totally achievement oriented and have perfectionist and compulsive-dependent traits. Here, the Olympic athlete might be viewed as a more positive form of workaholism. Research appears to indicate there are a number of central characteristics of workaholics. In short, they typically:

• Spend a great deal of time in work activities
• Are preoccupied with work even when they are not working
• Work beyond what is reasonably expected from them to meet their job requirements.
• Spend more time working because of an inner compulsion, rather than because of any external factors.

Again, some or all of these characteristics could be applied to Olympians. Hopefully, very few Olympic athletes are addicted, but if they are addicted, I would argue that it is more likely to be to their work rather than the exercise itself.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Psychology Division, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Allegre, B., Souville, M., Therme, P. & Griffiths, M.D. (2006). Definitions and measures of exercise dependence, Addiction Research and Theory,14, 631-646.

Allegre, B., Therme, P. & Griffiths, M.D. (2007). Individual factors and the context of physical activity in exercise dependence: A prospective study of ‘ultra-marathoners’. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 5, 233-243.

Andreassen, C.S., Griffiths, M.D., Hetland, J. & Pallesen, S. (2012). Development of a Work Addiction Scale. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 53, 265-272.

Berczik, K., Szabó, A., Griffiths, M.D., Kurimay, T., Kun, B. & Demetrovics, Z. (2012). Exercise addiction: symptoms, diagnosis, epidemiology, and etiology. Substance Use and Misuse, 47, 403-417.

Griffiths, M.D. (1997). Exercise addiction: A case study. Addiction Research,  5, 161-168.

Griffiths, M.D. (2005).  Workaholism is still a useful construct  Addiction Research and Theory, 13, 97-100.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Workaholism: A 21^st century addiction. The Psychologist: Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 24, 740-744.

Griffiths, M.D., Szabo, A. & Terry, A. (2005). The Exercise Addiction Inventory: A quick and easy screening tool for health practitioners. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 39, 30-31.

Mónok, K., Berczik, K., Urbán, R., Szabó^, A., Griffiths, M.D., Farkas, J., Magi, A., Eisinger, A., Kurimay, T., Kökönyei, G., Kun, B., Paksi, B. & Demetrovics, Z. (2012). Psychometric properties and concurrent validity of two exercise addiction measures: A population wide study in Hungary. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13, 739-746.

Oates, W. (1971), Confessions of a Workaholic: The Facts About Work Addiction, World, New York.

Szabo, A. & Griffiths, M.D. (2007). Exercise addiction in British sport science students. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 5, 25-28.

Terry, A., Szabo, A. & Griffiths, M. (2004). The Exercise Addiction Inventory: A new brief screening tool, Addiction Research and Theory, 12, 489-499.

Om Sweet Om: Can Transcendental Meditation be addictive?

Back in 1991, not long after I had been awarded my PhD, I was asked (by my then girlfriend) to attend on a course in Transcendental Meditation (TM). Up until that point, my only knowledge of TM was through my reading of many books about the Beatles and their association with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi back in 1967-1968. Although somewhat skeptical of TM I attended the weekly sessions for the whole course and was eventually inducted into the world of TM by a lovely guy called Mike Turnbull.

We didn’t have Google back then, but as a psychologist, I carried out a literature search and found that Turnbull had actually published papers on TM including a study in a 1982 issue of the British Journal of Psychology with Hugh Norris (entitled “Effects of Transcendental Meditation on self-identity indices and personality”). The results of Turnbull and Norris’ study showed that participants practicing TM appeared to have experienced consistent and definable changes of a beneficial nature, and that the value of TM as a therapeutic tool was recommended. For the next couple of years I did TM daily but by the mid-1990s TM had dropped out of my daily routine and now I only very occasionally do it.

Also in 1990, I became a psychology lecturer at the University of Plymouth, and was given my own specialist research-based module to teach on ‘Addictive Behaviours’ (which I still teach to this very day). It was during my teaching preparation for that module that I first encountered TM in an academic capacity in the context of ‘positive addictions’ (an area that I looked at in one of my early blogs).

It was in Bill Glasser’s 1976 book Positive Addictions that I first encountered the argument that activities such as TM and jogging could be considered positive addictions. It was also argued by Glasser that activities like TM was the kind of activity that could be deliberately cultivated to wean addicts away from more harmful and sinister preoccupations. According to Glasser, positive addictions must be rewarding activities (like TM) that produce increased feelings of self-efficacy.

As I wrote in my previous blog on positive addictions, one of my mentors, psychologist Iain Brown (now retired from Glasgow University) suggested it might be better to call some activities “mixed blessing addictions”, since even positive addictions such as exercise addiction (suggested by Glasser) might have some negative consequences. I have published a fair amount on exercise addiction since 1997 and I am of the opinion that some excessive exercise is genuinely addictive. However, I have never researched into excessive TM and as far as I am aware, there is no empirical evidence that it is addictive.

Anecdotally, I have been told that some TM practitioners (particularly those that teach it) appear to be “addicted” to TM. As a consequence, I decided to do a little digging to see if I could unearth anything on the relationship between TM and addiction. This led me to a 2010 article by Michael Sigman in the Huffington Post entitled “Meditation and Addiction: A Two-Way Street?” Sigman recounted the story about how one of his friends spent over two hours every day engaging in TM while in the lotus position. He then claimed:

“There are those few for whom meditation can become compulsive, even addictive. The irony here is that an increasing body of research shows that meditation – in particular Buddhist Vipassana meditation – is an effective tool in treating addiction. One category of meditation addiction is related to the so-called ‘spiritual bypass’. Those who experience bliss when they meditate may practice relentlessly to recreate that experience, at the expense of authentic self-awareness. A close friend who’s done Transcendental Meditation for decades feels so addicted to it, she has a hard time functioning when she hasn’t ‘transcended’”.

Obviously this is purely anecdotal but at least raises the issue that maybe for a very small minority, TM might be what psychologist Iain Brown calls a “mixed blessing addiction”. An article was published on the ‘TM-Free Blog’ entitled “Addiction and transcendental Meditation” that (for purposes of balance and fairness) publishes “skeptical views of transcendental meditation and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi”. The article pulled no punches and opened with the claim:

“TM has addictive qualities. Acknowledging the addictive characteristics of TM and other practices, Carol Giambalvo and other cult experts founded ReFOCUS.org to help former cult members break their addiction to trance states… Some devout TMers on the monastic Purusha or Mother Divine programs behave as if in an autistic state. These participants meditate for many hours daily, sometimes for years”.

They also claim that because empirical studies have shown that TM can increase pain tolerance, that the body is producing its own morphine-like substances (i.e., endorphins). Therefore, the addictive qualities of TM may be due to increased endorphin production that creates a semi-dissociative blissful state. For those substance addicts that have been successfully treated using TM, it would be a case of ‘one addiction replacing another’ (which was basically Bill Glasser’s argument in his book Positive Addiction). The article also claimed that endorphin-induced trance states explain why individuals who attend long meditation courses have higher levels of receptivity.

In researching this blog, I did come across some self-reported accounts of people who thought that they might be genuinely addicted to TM. For instance:

“I sometimes worry about being addicted to meditation. I have a compulsive personality and usually think of meditation as a good addiction that not only improves life [and] replaces all other addictions (it was only after beginning to meditate that smoking and drinking dropped away for me). The fact remains, however, that there is an element of compulsive (and therefore possibly unconscious or unexamined) behaviour that motivates the desire to follow a strict twice-a-day-routine. Every so often I skip a session or, less frequently, a whole day. I have been surprised recently how quickly I seem to experience withdrawal symptoms. I just feel off as the day goes on. After meditating it is like all my settings have been returned to normal and I feel great again. Then I think: isn’t that, in essence, just the what the alcoholic or drug addict experiences? I have no plans to stop meditating but I wonder if there is an element that is beyond my control?”

An article in the Canadian newspaper, the Edmonton Sun reported that TM can be addictive based on an interview with former “TM guru” Joe Kellett (who now runs an anti-TM website). Kellett said there was “a compendium of 75 studies of TM technique in 2000 [which] found that 63% of practitioners suffered long-term negative mental health consequences from the repeated dissociation – or disconnection – with reality caused by going into a trance-like state”. I haven’t located the study Kellett referred to although many TM websites claim that there have been over 600 empirical studies highlighting the positive benefits of TM, particularly in relation to various healthcare outcomes. Kellett went on to claim in his interview that:

“Dissociative ‘bliss’ is often an easily produced substitute for true personal growth. As teachers we memorize almost everything we are to tell students. We were very careful not to tell them too much less they become ‘confused’ by things that they ‘couldn’t yet understand. Only after they had the ‘experience,’ could we start very gradually revealing TM dogma in easy, bite-sized chunks, always after they had just finished meditation and were therefore likely to be still in a dissociative state”

Obviously, it is difficult to answer the question of whether TM is genuinely addictive given the complete lack of empirical evidence. However, from both a psychological and biological perspective, I think that such a concept is theoretically feasible but we need to carry out the empirical research

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Allegre, B., Souville, M., Therme, P. & Griffiths, M.D. (2006). Definitions and measures of exercise dependence, Addiction Research and Theory, 14, 631-646.

Berczik, K., Szabó, A., Griffiths, M.D., Kurimay, T., Kun, B. & Demetrovics, Z. (2012). Exercise addiction: symptoms, diagnosis, epidemiology, and etiology. Substance Use and Misuse, 47, 403-417.

Edmonton Sun (2006). Dissociative bliss becomes addictive. April 17. Located at: http://www.religionnewsblog.com/14345/dissociative-bliss-becomes-addictive

Glasser, W. (1976), Positive Addictions, Harper & Row, New York, NY.

Griffiths, M.D. (1996). Behavioural addictions: An issue for everybody? Journal of Workplace Learning, 8(3), 19-25.

Griffiths, M.D. (1997). Exercise addiction: A case study. Addiction Research,  5, 161-168.

Griffiths, M.D.  (2005). A ‘components’ model of addiction within a biopsychosocial framework. Journal of Substance Use, 10, 191-197.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Behavioural addiction: The case for a biopsychosocial approach. Trangressive Culture, 1, 7-28.

Sigman, M. (2010). Meditation and Addiction: A Two-Way Street? Huffington Post, November 15. Located at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-sigman/meditation-and-addiction_b_783552.htm

TM-Free Blog (2007). Addiction and transcendental Meditation, February 23. Located at: http://tmfree.blogspot.co.uk/2007/02/addiction-and-transcendental-meditation.html

Turnbull, M.J. & Norris, H. (1982). Effects of Transcendental Meditation on self-identity indices and personality, British Journal of Psychology, 73, 57-68.

Heavy petting: A brief overview of animal hoarding

Last week I was interviewed on BBC radio about Channel 4’s new show ‘The Hoarder Next Door’. In previous blogs, I have briefly examined pathological hoarding and one particular type of hoarding behaviour (i.e., pathological book hoarding). Another very specific type of hoarding is animal hoarding (typically defined as having a higher number of pets than is normal to have and failing to look after them properly). In a 2006 issue of Veterinary Medicine, Dr Gary Patronek (Tufts University, US) defined animal hoarding as: “Pathological human behaviour that involves a compulsive need to obtain and control animals, coupled with a failure to recognize their suffering”. According to a recent literature review led by Dr Albert Pertusa (Institute of Psychiatry, London), this sub-type of hoarding has been defined as the accumulation of a large number of animals along with a:

• Failure to provide minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation, and veterinary care.
• Failure to act on the deteriorating condition of the animals (including disease, starvation or death) and the environment (severe overcrowding, extremely unsanitary conditions)
• Lack of awareness of the negative effects of the collection on their own health and wellbeing and on that of other family members.

Animal hoarders often live in severe domestic squalor and live in more unsanitary conditions than other types of hoarder (although some other types of disorder such as Diogenes Syndrome – also known as ‘senile squalor syndrome’ – is characterized by extreme self-neglect, apathy, domestic squalor, social withdrawal, compulsive hoarding of rubbish, and lack of shame). It is common for the houses of animal hoarders to be filled with animal faecal waste, and it is not unusual to find the decomposing remains of dead animals. The animals are often left to reproduce at will as animal hoarders do not typically get their pets spayed or neutered. Sick animals are typically left to die and rot. A 2009 study by Dr Gary Patronek and Jane Nathanson examined the living areas of 49 animal hoarders. They reported that four out of five living areas were “heavily littered with trash and garbage” (78%), and that in just under a half there was “profuse urine or feces in the living spaces” (45%).

One very key difference between animal and non-animal hoarders is that animal hoarding may involve animal cruelty. Dr Frank Ascione (Utah State University) defines animal cruelty as a “socially unacceptable behavior that intentionally causes unnecessary pain, suffering, or distress to and/or death of an animal”. Ascione believes that animal neglect falls within this definition and that therefore animal hoarders are guilty of animal cruelty. However, some researchers claim that the animal cruelty is not deliberate as the compulsive hoarding is underpinned by some kind of mental disorder.

Many animal hoarders are known to hoard other items and objects, and therefore some experts in the area (such as Patronek and Nathanson) suggest that animal hoarding is a special manifestation of compulsive hoarding. There is also some research that suggests that animal hoarding follows more ‘conventional’ hoarding. However, animal hoarders share many of the same characteristics as those with Diogenes Syndrome. It has also been suggested that animal hoarders had very controlling parents, come from backgrounds that were chaotic and/or deprived in childhood (and sometimes described as scary and frightening), have psychological issues and problems surrounding emotional attachments, and often attribute human characteristics to the animals they own. Another seemingly common theme is that of physical and/or psychological loss. For animal hoarders, losing a possession is for them like losing a close friend or family member. It has also been claimed that some animal hoarders are often incapable of looking after and caring for themselves (let alone animals – particularly if there are so many of them).

Colin Berry and colleagues, writing in an overview on animal hoarding for the journal Animal Law cited a 2002 review by Arnold Arluke and reported:

“Arnold Arluke analyzed one hundred articles about animal hoarding. Arluke suggests that, rather than presenting a realistic picture of animal hoarding that captures the complexity of the issue, the media presents animal hoarding in a stream of different emotional themes. While drawing the reader’s attention, these themes are more likely to elicit revulsion, sympathy, or humor from the reader rather than understanding of the hoarding issues themselves. Arluke concludes that these emotional themes ‘present an inconsistent picture of animal hoarding that can confuse readers about the nature and significance of this behavior.’ Portraying hoarders’ stories in this light can cause the public to be sympathetic and even supportive of the hoarder and her actions. Some hoarders even receive donations or offers of more animals”.

In the same paper, Berry and colleagues also noted that in terms of demographics, empirical studies have found that animal hoarders are typically middle-aged or older females who are often disabled, retired, or unemployed, living alone in homes without working appliances. The animals that are most likely to be hoarded are cats (the highest number they came across being owned was 400) and dogs (the highest number owned being 218). They also noted that numerous psychological models have been proposed to explain animal hoarding, including focal delusion, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), zoophilia, and dementia. Although there is no consensus, the conceptualizing of animal hoarding as a form of OCD appears to be the most popular explanation (although this does not appear to explain all cases). According to Karen Cassiday, no-one knows what the prevalence of animal hoarders is within any population although press reports over the last decade have quintupled. Whatever the prevalence, animal hoarding is an area that needs further investigation.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Arluke, A. et al. (2002). Press reports of animal hoarding. Society and Animals, 113, 130-32.

Ascione, F. (1993). Children who are cruel to animals: A review of research and implications for developmental psychopathology. Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 6, 226-247.

Berry, C., Patronek, G. & Lockwood, R. (2005). Long-term outcomes in animal hoarding cases. Animal Law, 11, 167-194.

Cassiday, K.L. (undated). Animal hoarding: An overlooked and misunderstood problem. Located at: http://www.ocdchicago.org/images/uploads/pdf/Cassiday_-_Animal_Hoarding_-_An_Overlooked_and_Misunderstood_Problem.pdf

Patronek, G. J., & Nathanson, J. N. (2009). A theoretical perspective to inform assessment and treatment strategies for animal hoarders. Clinical Psychology Review, 29, 274−281.

Pertusa, A., Frost, R.O., Fullana, M.A., Samuels, J., Steketee, G., Tolin, D., Saxena, S., Leckman, J.F., Mataix-Cols, D. (2010). Refining the diagnostic boundaries of compulsive hoarding: A critical review. Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 371-386.

Reinisch, A.I. (2008). Understanding the human aspects of animal hoarding. Canadian Veterinary Journal, 49, 1211-1214.