Psychological Treatment of Slot Machine Pathological Gambling A Case Study

In this article, treatment with stimulus control, exposure, and relapse prevention of a patient affected by pathological gambling is described. The patient, a 47-year-old woman, was suffering from this disorder for 5 years. Treatment consisted of nine individual sessions (five sessions of stimulus control and exposure and four sessions of relapse prevention) in a period of 10 weeks. At the end of 1-year follow-up, the patient was much improved, without gambling behavior or associated symptoms, as well as with a greater overall adaptation. Implications of this case for clinical research and practice are discussed.