| As gambling becomes more accessible and socially acceptable, gambling problems begin to affect an increasing number of individuals. Some individuals will seek treatment for gambling-related problems and others will not. The problem is that many individuals with gambling problems, who do not seek formal treatment, will choose self-change strategies. Research has become increasingly important in relation to self-change and how individual informed decisions are made for resolving problem gambling behaviors. Self-change is not initiated by events, but is rather the result of a process. The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) can provide an understanding of this process through the TTM stages and processes of change. These stages and processes of change define intent related to changing problem behavior, and include the action and maintenance stages of change and the processes of change, counterconditioning and stimulus control. The purpose of this qualitative, interpretative, phenomenological study was to provide understanding of how individuals with disordered gambling experience the stages and processes of change, primarily the action and maintenance stages and counterconditioning and stimulus control processes respectively, toward self-change. The methods of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) were utilized to investigate how individuals make sense of major experiences related to a phenomenon, which ultimately allowed for an individual disordered gamblers' understanding to be presented. Purposive sampling was used to recruit and subsequently interview five participants, aged 18 to 65 years, who have a history of gambling problems and who had also initiated self-change strategies for at least six months. The connections that the gamblers made related to self-change processes aligned to the TTM stages and processes of change. Following the semi-structured interviews, data were analyzed on a case-by-case basis and themes were compared. The themes clustered into three superordinate themes, which corresponded to the stages and processes of change. Emergent themes included Action-Oriented Behavioral Change, Sustainment of Behavioral Change, and Self-Change Promotion, with sub-themes identified as desire for change, barriers to change, self-awareness, social support systems, plan of action, financial implications, motivating factors, triggers, alternative behaviors, and emotional management. Information from this study has possible application for future problem gambling treatment opportunities and how self-change is possible. Future research utilizing change theory needs to continue to explore how self-change is possible with not only gambling disorder, but other addictions as well. |
