Counselling in the treatment of pathological gambling: An overview

Gambling is an activity that will become increasingly known to the counselling profession as the problematic effects of gambling deregulation in the United Kingdom slowly take effect over the nextfive to ten years. The gambling literature and the phases of the pathological gambler's career are briefly examined. Counselling approaches that have been used in the treatment of pathological gambling include (i) psychotherapy, (ii) conjoint marital therapy, (iii) minimal interventions, (iv) behavioural counselling, and (v) practical approaches to the treatment of adolescent problem gamblers. It is concluded that, although a number of evaluation studies have been carried out, few are directly comparable with one another, and several have methodological problems which may undermine the value of the evidence produced.