Group psychological counselling as a form of prevention of adolescent addictive behaviour

Abstract

This article provides an analysis of domestic and foreign literature on the concept of “adolescent addictive behaviour,” summarises its scientific understanding, and outlines the mechanisms of the emergence of addictive behaviour and psychological characteristics of adolescents exhibiting addictive behaviour. The study presents a review of modern research on the problems of Internet-, food-, and alcohol addictions. The review includes Russian, Kazakh and international literature on the psychological prevention of adolescent addictive behaviour. The concept of the “psychological prevention of adolescent addictive behaviour” is disclosed, and the principles and objectives of preventive work with adolescents prone to addictive behaviour are defined. A set of diagnostic techniques is proposed to study the predilection of adolescents to addictive behaviour. The article reveals the content and effectiveness of the programme for the psychological prevention of adolescents’ predisposition to addictive behaviour by means of group psychological counselling. The authors describe the course of experimental work on the study of adolescents’ predisposition to addictive behaviour, present the testing of the developed psychological programme, and demonstrate the effectiveness of adolescents’ group counselling to prevent their addictive behaviour. The results of the study confirm the authors’ hypothesis that the use of group forms of psychological counselling is effective in psychological prevention, as it relies on the activity of adolescents. The results of the study contribute to the development of preventive pedagogy and psychology, and the improvement of the modern system of anti-alcohol and anti-drug education of adolescents. The study findings can be also used in educational institutions in advisory and remedial work with adolescents.