How can we conceptualize behavioural addiction without pathologizing common behaviours?
Ten authors (Kardefelt-Winther, Heeren, Schimmenti, van Rooij, Maurage, Carras, Edman, Blaszczynski, Khazaal and Billieux) noted that after DSM-5 revised its addictive disorders category, research increasingly labelled many common behaviours and leisure activities as possible behavioural addictions. They proposed an operational definition of behavioural addiction with exclusion criteria meant to avoid pathologizing common behaviours, and invited other researchers to extend it in an open framework.
Ten authors (Kardefelt-Winther, Heeren, Schimmenti, van Rooij, Maurage, Carras, Edman, Blaszczynski, Khazaal and Billieux) noted that after DSM-5 revised its addictive disorders category, research increasingly labelled many common behaviours and leisure activities as possible behavioural addictions. They proposed an operational definition of behavioural addiction with exclusion criteria meant to avoid pathologizing common behaviours, and invited other researchers to extend it in an open framework.
Written from the abstract via Europe PMC record, 2026-11-03; full text not read.
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Kardefelt-Winther, D., Heeren, A., Schimmenti, A., van Rooij, A., Maurage, P., Carras, M., Edman, J., Blaszczynski, A., Khazaal, Y., & Billieux, J. (2017). How can we conceptualize behavioural addiction without pathologizing common behaviours? Addiction, 112(10), 1709-1715. doi:10.1111/add.13763 https://doi.org/10.1111/add.13763