What is an effective treatment for addiction? How can we help individuals who have experienced harm and trauma identify their core pain? And how can emotional change trigger the language of transformation?
In the book How to Treat Addiction? Emotional Change ⇔ Behavioral Change, Dr. Aharon Shabi presents the Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) approach to addiction. This approach, rooted in humanistic psychology principles, emphasizes the power of interpersonal relationships in the treatment of addiction victims. It focuses on transforming maladaptive emotions—such as anxiety and shame—into positive emotions that catalyze change, such as a sense of self-worth and competence.
Emotion-Focused Therapy aims to instill new, positive emotions within the emotional system, enabling functional and behavioral changes. The approach includes the activation of empathy language, strengthening emotional awareness, emotional expression and regulation, and emotional transformation—intended to help individuals struggling with addiction build a new emotional narrative. This narrative is based on a sense of personal and practical capacity for change, which includes reducing or ceasing substance use and improving functional abilities.
The book consists of ten chapters, combining theories, research, personal narratives, and therapeutic protocols within the framework of Emotion-Focused Therapy. Among the topics discussed: an analysis of addiction to substances and behaviors, real-time therapeutic practices, integrating harm reduction approaches into Emotion-Focused Therapy, treatment in the digital space, challenges in applying the interpersonal approach, and strategies for addressing these challenges.
The book is aimed at a wide audience—both readers who wish to understand the phenomenon of addiction and advanced treatment methods, and professionals such as social workers, criminologists, and psychologists who seek to promote change processes among their clients. Therapists who adopt this approach may bring about significant change in populations experiencing grief, shame, and distress, offering them opportunities for growth and recovery.
Dr. Aharon Shabi is an expert with experience in psycho-social treatment, a lecturer in the fields of addiction, social work, criminology, and education, and the director of addiction treatment at the Ministry of Welfare in Israel. For many years, he has worked with at-risk youth, adults with functional difficulties, couples, and families dealing with emotional distress. His research and writings are published in professional journals.
