A hospital in the Scottish Borders, a council in Scotland next to the City of Edinburgh, is pioneering an addiction treatment for ‘cryptocurrency junkies.’
Castle Craig Hospital has introduced a course of residential treatment for people suffering from the underlying issues of trading addiction in order to be able to quit the cryptocurrency market altogether if they want to.
Cryptocurrency Trading Addicts Offered Treatment in Scotland
The trading of virtual currencies can induce behavioral addiction the same way online gambling does, according to experts that helped create the first course to treat the problem using techniques found in gambling addiction programmes.
Cryptocurrency traders can become obsessive to the point of following minute-by-minute fluctuations in prices. Chris Burn, a gambling therapist at Castle Craig Hospital, finds many similarities between gambling and the cryptocurrency trading world.
“The high risk, fluctuating cryptocurrency market appeals to the problem gambler. It provides excitement and an escape from reality. Bitcoin, for example, has been heavily traded and huge gains and losses were made. It’s a classic bubble situation.”
The gambling therapist may have inadvertently confused the terms ‘classic bubble’ with ‘volatility.’ The definition of a ‘speculative bubble’ refers to the trading of an asset at a price or price range that strongly exceeds the asset’s intrinsic value. Volatility is measured by the degree of variation of a trading price series over time, which seems to be what Burn’s was referring to.
Therapist Tony Marini, a former gambling and cocaine addict, will lead some of the treatments at the rehabilitation center to help introduce a life structure for addicts.
“Having been through it myself, my experience of addiction gives me insight and empathy towards others who have the same problem. I see cryptocurrency trading as a way for people to escape from themselves, into another world, because they don’t like the world they’re in. The first stage of treatment is to join other addicts in group therapy and share their life stories. This helps them identify with each other and realize that they’re not alone.”
It is unknown how many people in the world trade cryptocurrencies and how many of them day trade to the extent of being regarded as addicts. High-risk trading usually gives a kick and rush, especially for people with an innate psychological tendency toward compulsion and addiction. The nucleus accumbens is the pleasure center of the human brain and also responds to the thrill of trading.
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