Dealing with the Problem Gamblers

In recent years, the traditional psychoanalytic position that gamblers are neurotic masochists has been questioned by practicing psychiatrists.

After studying fifty troubled gamblers in England, E. Moran concluded that problem gambling develops primarily from a host of social and environmental factors.

He found that only 20 percent of his subjects could be termed neurotics, and even fewer exhibited a masochistic desire to lose.

Moran contended that the term compulsive gambling was inappropriate and inaccurate, since gamblers do not exhibit signs of true compulsion, that is, 'pursuing an activity which is felt to be alien and is therefore persistently dreaded and resisted.

He suggested that the term pathological replace compulsive as a descriptor of this behavioral syndrome.

Moran stressed the importance of subcultural gambling that arises out of the individual's familiarity with gambling and acquaintance with other gamblers, reporting that in some working-class neighborhoods, the non-gambler would be considered an outsider.

In the United States, Sanford Chapman, after analyzing gambling experiences, concluded that Bergler's unconscious-wish-to-lose theory is not applicable to actual gaming situations.

The psychiatrist observed that problem gamblers typically are impatient players who crave action more than gambling losses.

Chapman warned that gambling is different and that participants inevitably lose money and suggested that the problem is not that gamblers need to lose, but that they need to gamble.

One of the leading contemporary authorities in the field of compulsive gambling is Robert Custer, a psychiatrist with the veterans Administration in Washington, D.C. After treating hundreds of compulsive gambling in and out of hospital settings and consulting on numerous other gambling cases, Custer concluded that only a small percentage (10 to 20 percent) exhibit neurotic symptoms.

He found no substantial evidence that gamblers an unconscious wish to lose.

For Custer, the compulsive, or pathological, gambling syndrome represents a 'confluence of numerous psychological, social, cultural, and even biological factors'.

In 1980, Custer was instrumental in convincing the American Psychiatric Association to include pathological gambling in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual III.

Custer believes that problem gamblers closely resemble substance addicts, becoming heavily dependent on gambling to provide them with stimulating experiences.

Moran and Custer have been influential in altering the classic psychoanalytic view of gambling.

They have clearly documented, through empirical research, that neurotic behavior and gambling participation are not directly linked, and that gambling is much more than a substitute for masturbation or an expression of unresolved oedipal conflict.

The contemporary psychiatric establishment has establishment has generally rejected Bergler's unconscious-wish-to-lose theory in favor of an addiction model that retains the concept that some individuals are compelled to gamble. Psychiatric researchers were the first to seriously examine gambling behavior.

Although they studied patients seeking treatment to stop gambling, their findings were generalized to other gambling populations.