Disorders Due to Substance Use and Addictive Behaviors

This course covers substance use disorders and addictive behaviors and discusses their diagnostic criteria, contributing factors, and treatments.
On Demand Training
Part of the series

Psychology of Anxiety, Mood, Substance Use, and Addictive Behaviors

Psychology of Substance Use, Depressive Disorders, and Trauma

PsycLearn Essentials

May 2024

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Substance use disorders and addictive behaviors are widespread, global problems that affect many families, possibly your own. This course reviews common substance use disorders associated with depressants, opioids, stimulants, hallucinogens, dissociative drugs, and inhalants. In addition, the course covers addictive behaviors, such as gambling, and gaming disorders.

The course begins with an introduction to psychological disorders due to substance use and explains the process of diagnosis before describing the two dominant diagnostic schemes, the ICD-11 from the World Health Organization and the DSM-5-TR from the American Psychiatric Association. The course will also explain how clinicians take culture into account in diagnosis and treatment.

The course then covers disorders due to use of depressants, including alcohol, and cannabis, and disorders due to use of stimulants, hallucinogens, dissociative drugs, and inhalants. For each substance use disorder, diagnostic criteria, global prevalence, demographic characteristics, and neurochemical effects on the brain are discussed. The course moves on to explain the biological, psychological, and sociocultural contributing factors for the different substance use disorders. In addition, this section discusses biological, psychological, and sociocultural treatments for the different disorders. In the last section, we cover disorders due to addictive behaviors, such as gambling, and gaming disorders.

Finally, this course includes comprehensive review material and self-paced assessments to help you excel in your study of substance use disorders and addictive behaviors.

Learning objectives

  • Compare and contrast common substance use disorders.
  • Explain the common contributing factors for substance use disorders.
  • Discuss options for treating substance use disorders.
  • Describe the psychology of disorders due to addictive behavior.
  • Describe the diagnostic criteria for disorders due to substance use and addictive behaviors

This program does not offer CE credit.

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