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Addiction Can Take Many Forms
Addiction is not limited to substances. It can take shape around alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, food, relationships, work, or digital life. Some describe it as a compulsion they can’t stop; others as a gap they can’t leave unfilled. Guilt, secrecy, or confusion often follow.
We don’t moralise or offer quick corrections. Instead, we listen to what the addiction is doing — and why it became necessary. In psychoanalytic terms, addiction is not a failure of willpower but a formation — one with its own logic that can be worked through.
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What Causes Addiciton?
Addiction can sometimes feel like the only structure holding things together — a way of coping, avoiding, or surviving. But what is being avoided? What is the repetition trying to cover, or keep alive?
Addiction may be a way of coping with being. In other words, the symptom isn’t just a behaviour — it’s a response to existence itself. To suffering, to desire, to what it means to be human.
At the Other clinic, we don’t offer step-based programmes or behavioural contracts. Instead, our counselling & therapy makes space for the question: What role does this play in your life?
When addiction is treated as a message to be intepreted, something begins to shift.
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How Can Addiction Counselling Help?
You don’t need a diagnosis, a referral, or a rock-bottom moment to begin.
You may be unsure if what you’re dealing with “counts” as addiction. You may have tried to stop — or not want to stop at all. You may feel caught between relief and regret, or afraid of what might come up if the symptom is taken away.
Therapy offers a space not to be told what to do — but to be heard. To begin speaking what hasn’t yet been said. And through that, to loosen what has until now felt unmovable.
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About Us
We are a patient-first professional counselling & psychotherapy service in Dublin.
Psychoanalytically trained. Dublin based.
100%
Hold Masters Degrees
177+
Combined years of experience
1
Singular Treatment
Evidence Based Approach
2021 — Psychodynamic/ Psychoanalytic) psychotherapy in opioid dependence (Gottdiener) [1]
In a meta analysis, long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy showed better outcomes than shorter treatments on overall improvement, target problems, and personality functioning in complex mental disorders (long-standing, multi-layered presentations).
2023 — Psychodynamic therapies perform similarly to other psychological treatments across addictions (Zuccon et al.,) [2]
A meta-analysis comparing psychodynamic therapy with other psychological treatments across alcohol, cocaine and opioid samples found that psychodynamic approaches were as effective as other treatments on key recovery outcomes overall.
2019 — Brief psychodynamic therapy in an NHS gambling clinic (Mooney et al.) [3]
A pilot in an NHS problem gambling clinic offered 12 sessions of a brief relational psychodynamic protocol to “difficult-to-treat” clients (many with complex histories and prior CBT that hadn’t helped). Across routine measures, clients showed significant reductions in gambling severity, alongside lower anxiety and depression scores after treatment.
2023 — Psychological intervention for gambling disorder (Eriksen et al.) [4]
A review summarising controlled research concludes that psychological interventions are efficacious overall for gambling disorder, while noting variability between studies and the need for stronger long-term evidence.
Research Summary
These studies were chosen because they give a clear snapshot of what the wider research suggests.
Overall, psychotherapy can help reduce addictive behaviours and the distress that often sits underneath them.
Many people do best with a combined approach – for example, structured support such as a rehabilitation programme or peer support (including 12-step) alongside therapy.
Results vary from person to person, but overall the research points in a consistently positive direction.
Counselling
Eating Disorders & Body Dysmorphia