title: Commentary on: Are we overpathologizing everyday life? A tenable blueprint for behavioral addiction research. On functional and compulsive aspects of reinforcement pathologies.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This paper is a commentary to a debate article entitled: "Are we overpathologizing everyday life? A tenable blueprint for behavioral addiction research", by Billieux et al. (2015). METHODS AND AIM: This brief response focused on the necessity to better characterize psychological and related neurocognitive determinants of persistent deleterious actions associated or not with substance utilization.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A majority of addicted people could be driven by psychological functional reasons to keep using drugs, gambling or buying despite the growing number of related negative consequences. In addition, a non-negligible proportion of them would need assistance to restore profound disturbances in basic learning processes involved in compulsive actions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The distinction between psychological functionality and compulsive aspects of addictive behaviors should represent a big step towards more efficient treatments.
authors.affiliation: Brain and Creativity Institute, Department of Psychology, University of Southern California , Los Angeles, CA , USA.|Laboratoire de psychologie médicale et d'addictologie, Faculty of Medicine, Brugmann-campus, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) , Brussels , Belgium.
authors.forename: Damien
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Brevers
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de psychologie médicale et d'addictologie, Faculty of Medicine, Brugmann-campus, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) , Brussels , Belgium.
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Noel
mesh_terms: D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000523:psychology*; D035841:Behavioral Research / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical
keywords: DSM; behavioral addictions; comorbidity; compulsion; inflexibility; substance addiction