Model of medical and psychological counseling of patients with a comorbid combination of gambling and alexithymia

Abstract

Background. The article highlights the features of providing counseling to patients with gambling addiction, in particular, the specifics of medical and psychological counseling in those common cases when pathological gambling is comorbidly combined with alexithymic disorder. Purpose. The purpose of the article is to scientifically substantiate and describe the developed model of medical and psychological counseling of patients with a pathological urge to gamble, formed due to the presence of alexithymia. Materials and Methods. In the process of creating a model of medical and psychological counseling of patients with a comorbid combination of gambling and alexithymia, such methods as analysis of scientific sources, modeling, clinical amnestic and clinical psychological methods were used. Results. The essential properties of clinical and psychological interventions, one of the varieties of which is medical and psychological counseling, are characterized. The specifics of the application and content of medical and psychological as an independent type of medical psychologist’s activity in clinical practice are described. It is determined that counseling with patients with mental disorders is reduced to mitigating the psychological and social consequences of nuclear mental disorder, as well as eliminating psychological factors that exacerbate its course. The author’s model of medical and psychological counseling of patients with a comorbid combination of gambling and alexithymia is scientifically substantiated and described. The task of creating a conceptual model of medical and psychological counseling of gambling addicts with alexithymic radical in the structure of their personality was specified in the article as the need for structural disclosure of fundamentally important positions and features of the application of an integrative-eclectic approach in psychotherapeutic practice, applied with counseling with patients suffering from gambling addiction and having comorbid alexithymic symptoms. Conclusions. The necessity of wide use of clinical interviews, psychoeducation and developments of the cognitive-behavioral approach in the practice of providing advisory assistance to this category of patients is substantiated. The developed model of medical and psychological counseling of patients with pathological gambling and alexithymia is a structured and detailed description of the main medical psychologist’s activities with the allocation of their key stages, which in the aggregate are reduced to tactful verbal influence to eliminate maladaptive manifestations.