Partners of individuals with gambling disorder: Facilitators and barriers to recovery. A Middle East Collaboration.

• Applicant: Dr. Tobias Hayer
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 554585181

Recovery represents a key topic in the addiction literature, including for gambling disorder (GD). Recovery is defined as the transition from illness to health, as well as the process of change through which the symptoms of illness decrease or diminish in conjunction with personal growth and social involvement. One the one hand, partners of individuals with GD may be a resource for recovery. On the other hand, they may also suffer from the consequences of their partner’s disorder themselves and thus need support. Whereas most studies have dealt with the ways individuals with GD initiate recovery and attempt to sustain it, this research project will shed light on the partners of such individuals in Israel and Germany, what the resources they use, and the challenges they encounter in living with their GD partners. The conceptual framework of Recovery Capital (RC) captures external and internal resources (positive RC) individuals use to cope during their recovery process. Negative RC in turn refers to the external and internal barriers to recovery. In our study, a descriptive qualitative methodology will be applied to identify and conceptualize (a) the internal and external positive resources that partners use to help significant others with GD to recover; (b) the barriers that hinder them from doing so; (c) the internal and external positive elements that these partners need for themselves to improve their own lives; and (d) the barriers they encounter on the way to this improvement. This will yield two holistic models of RC elements: one of positive and negative RC elements used/encountered by the partners to support individuals with GD (model 1: "helping others") and another of RC elements related to the partners themselves (model 2: "helping themselves").

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Israel
• International Co-Applicant: Professorin Belle Gavriel-Fried