Will Baum, LCSW

A study shows couples therapy edging out individual therapy for women working to recover from alcoholism:

A new research effort assessed the benefit of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for alcohol-dependent women.  The innovative research design also investigated if CBT was more effective if delivered as couples therapy rather than individual therapy [and found] that both treatment methods worked well, but women treated in couples therapy maintained their gains a bit better than those in individual therapy.

The L.A. Times profiles Beit T’Shuvah.  The Venice Blvd. rehab combines the twelve steps with Jewish spirituality .  At the helm, Mark Borovitz, con man turned rabbi–his autobiography is The Holy Thief.

Posted at PsychCentral, Drug, Food Addiction Share Common Source:

A new study shows that the same molecular mechanisms that drive an individual into drug addiction are behind the compulsion to overeat, pushing an individual into obesity.

An individual rat, at least.

From PsyBlog,  What Alcohol Does to Your Mind: Attentional Myopia takes a look at the narrowing effect drinking has on thinking:

According to a growing body of evidence collected over the last three or more decades, people’s Jekyll and Hyde behaviour while drinking can be understood by a simple idea which has some intriguing ramifications.

The alcohol myopia model says that drink makes our attentional system short-sighted and the more we drink, the more short-sighted it becomes. With more alcohol our brains become less and less able to process peripheral cues and more focused on what is right in front of us…

More here.

The L.A. Times joins the Tiger Woods-triggered sex addiction journalism spree:

Unlike compulsive gambling, which also is proposed for addition to the new DSM (to be called DSM-5), the proposed diagnosis — hypersexual disorder — stops short of categorizing the problem as an addiction, and for a reason.

“If we are looking at a disorder, it’s not clear what that disorder is,” said Michael Miner, a professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Minnesota who advised the DSM-5 committee on sexual disorders. “There is not an agreed-upon name. The research is in its infancy.”