What is Behavioural Addiction?
Behavioural Addiction is defined as when an individual has lost their power to maintain his/her ability to control the specific behaviour they are engaged in. The individual has eventually become powerless over this behaviour and has now lost the ability to enjoy a balanced and normal level of engagement in this behaviour.
There are many activities that an individual may become addicted to, such as sex, gambling, and shopping being the most common. However, experts in the field are finding new addictive behaviours emerging, such as internet activity, computer games and even mobile phone addiction.
Most addictive behaviours can be less impairing to a person’s well-being than others, and the person can lead a reasonably positive quality of life. It is only when the activity/behaviour has become so compulsive that the individual is unable to ‘stop’ engaging in it. The evidence now shows that the individual’s addictive behaviour, which first began as a pleasurable experience, is now having a severe negative impact on the person, and his/her quality of life has deteriorated substantially.
