Addictive Personality

Recognising The Addictive Personality

There is a vast difference between an individual that has an addictive personality and an individual that will develop an addiction in their lifetime. However, as any professional offering addiction counselling in London can verify, within the addicted individuals that they work with there are common traits and common factors.

Being able to recognise the signs of an addictive personality in yourself and the people you love is an important first step in being proactive in seeking treatment and counselling. Typically when thoughts, behaviours, ideations and fixations start to interfere with your ability to enjoy life it is time to seek the services of a professional providing addiction counselling in London.

Addiction or Focus?

One of the biggest issues that people with an addictive personality face is that often their focus and their single-minded pursuit of a goal is considered to be an asset, at least in specific situations. When the object of the addiction or hyperfocus is sometime that is positive, such as work, diet or exercise, it may be seen as a positive character trait.

Then, as the individual's world become more exclusive of other things besides their focus, it becomes more of a concern. Before long that intense and controlled dieting and exercise has become a food addiction or eating disorder or the attention to work has become work addiction. The result is that the individual begins to lose their balance in life as they simply want to do more and more of the addictive behaviour and have less and less of a normal, healthy life.

Addictive Personality Traits

While not a diagnoses an addiction counsellor in London will be able to identify any addictive personality traits that may be present in a client. Most mental health professionals agree that the traits associated with addictive personalities include:

•           Understanding their level of focus is unusual and attempting to hide the extent of the behaviour from others, often by providing excuses, rationalisations and lies.

•           Inability to curb or stop the behaviour despite understanding it is beginning to negatively impacting life

•           Constant thoughts about the behaviour

•           Depression or anxiety if they are unable to engage in the behaviour

•           Low self-esteem combined with high levels of stress

•           Impulsive and poor decision making processes

•           Prefer immediate gratification to delayed gratification

•           Feel isolated, alienated and value being nonconformists

•           Difficulty with interpersonal relationships

It is critical to understand that there is a genetic component to addiction as well as the influence of both culture and society. It is also important to remember that addiction can be treated and managed and is not a defining part of an individual's personality.

Addiction Counselling in London

At Philippe Jacquet & Associates we specialise in providing addiction counselling in London for clients of all ages and for all types of addiction recovery. For people that may feel that they have an addictive personality or exhibit some of the traits proactively seeking counselling can be the best insurance that an addiction will not become an issue in life.

Our highly experienced, accredited and professional addiction counsellors in London can help you in developing effective coping mechanisms to address the early signs of addiction or addictive behaviour you may be experiencing.

Posted by: Philippe Jacquet