3D Pathological gambling: Family, marital and individual variables

Abstract

This work integrates and articulates the main results of the project “Pathological gambling in 3D: Family, marital and individual variables”, presented in five scientific articles. The
results show that pathological gamblers are a heterogeneous group with different severities of the gambling problem, revealing a positive relationship between increasing severity of pathological gambling and the amount and intensity of individual, marital and family difficulties associated. The order in which these difficulties appear seems to put family difficulties and differentiation of the self in the last place and marital and individual difficulties in the first one. There is little consensus regarding the marriage and family areas between gambler(s) and their spouse(s), whereby the perspective of the former is less marked by deficit or more optimistic than the latter’s. The articulation of these data has led to a comprehensive reflection on the theme, systematized by the reformulation of the Integrative Systemic Model of Pathological Gambling.