Online group therapy in gambling: an unknown treatment modality discovered in times of pandemic

Abstract

In recent years the use of technologies in the field of psychotherapy has been growing continuously, this rapid development creates the need of evaluate its advantages and limitations in therapy. As a result of the current pandemic and the importance that teletherapy is acquiring as a therapeutic alternative, the goal of this paper is to carry out a review of the existing scientific literature on internet-based group intervention in addictions and in pathological gambling in particular. Additionally, experience from the authors on group intervention (internet and live) will be described and used as a resource for conclusions. Searches have been carried out in the databases PsycINFO, MEDLINE, PubMed and Web of Science, in which the results published from January 2010 to August 2020 were examined by combining different descriptors. After performing these searches, the results found showed that there are currently no published paper that research group therapy live online as a therapeutic modality in the field of addiction, in those databases with the descriptors used. For this purpose, in the absence of scientific literature related to the subject, some ideas are proposed in this paper to be considered for future research, based on the experience gathered in the group therapy live online with players pathological developed by the Association of Psychotherapists for the Study of Addiction Psychological response to the need for social distance product of the pandemic caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2.