Luis Suarez says he is getting help in order to control his "impulse" to bite.
The Uruguayan forward, who is expected to make his Barcelona competitive debut against Real Madrid on Saturday following a summer move from Liverpool, was initially banned by FIFA from all football-related activity for four months for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini during the World Cup.
The severity of the ban was lessened on appeal, meaning he was at least allowed to train and play in friendlies.
The unsavoury incident with Chiellini in Brazil was the third time Suarez had bitten an opponent after previously doing the same to PSV Eindhoven's Otman Bakkal while playing for Ajax in 2010 and Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic while at Liverpool in 2013.
"I believe I am on the right path now, dealing with the people who can help me, the right kind of people," he told the Guardian Weekend magazine.
"It is like an impulse, like a reaction. Everyone has different ways of defending themselves. In my case, the pressure and tension came out in that way.
"There are other players who react by breaking someone's leg, or smashing someone's nose across their face. What happened with Chiellini is seen as worse. I understand why biting is seen so badly."
The 27-year-old remains unrepentant, however, over the clash with Manchester United's Patrice Evra in October 2011 when he said he called the French defender a 'negro'.
Suarez was found guilty of racially abusing Evra and was subsequently banned for eight matches and fined £40,000 by the Football Association.
"I know I was wrong with the biting and the diving but I was accused of racism without any proof," Suarez said.
"There were lots of cameras, but no evidence. It hurts me the most that it was my word against theirs.
"Every culture has its way of expressing itself, and that's a word people in Uruguay use all the time, whether somebody's black or not black."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article