Psychoanalysis and the Treatment of Drug Addiction Essay

Drug habituation persists to present major challenge to serving psychoanalysts. T present ar different techniques usanced to treat medicate dep shutdownance notwithstanding this paper mainly discusses psychoanalysis as a mode of treatment for medicine addiction. Even though media hype regarding the issue of medicate addiction has increase in the last few years, there has not been sufficient stress on different methods dropd to deal with it. Therapists, educationist, and the common public require info on the subject of treatment methods and means that are accessible to them.Gradually more, experienced psychoanalysts are getting employed in medicate addiction programs (Hosie, West, & Mackey, 1997). In order to be successful, they should be aware of different methods applyd in drug addiction treatment and try to incorporate them into their daily practice and job. peck who are in the field of drug addiction treatment, nonetheless, must try to have clear idea well-nigh vic timization different methods of treatment (Schonfeld & Morosko, 1997).Among the conglomerate modalities used to treat drug addiction are the twelve-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), professional counsel and psychiatric care, family systems therapy, and healing(p) community treatment. In the past, these approaches have often been at odds with one an early(a) (Minkoff, 1995). Some of the debates have involved whether drug addiction is a disease in and of itself or is reflective of rough underlying psychopathology.The proponents of the disease toughie have included AA (1995) supporters, who have tended to focus on abstinence as a way of controlling the disease. Adherents to the psychopathology model have mainly been mental health professionals who have advocated psychiatric and professional counselling treatment. Yeager, DiGiuseppe, Olsen, Lewis, and Alberti (1997) noted that therapeutic community treatment has become increasingly pop because traditional and more indivi dually oriented psychiatric modalities have not been very effective.They echoed the argument made by Vaillant (1975) that clients suffering from drug addiction pauperization milieu and group involvement with their peers. External control, containment, and structure from milieu-oriented treatment are needed before meaningful psychotherapy can dismay. Stanton and Todd (2000) agreed that peer make can play a piece in less serious drug addiction problems however that long-term drug addiction commandly has its origins in adolescence and that serious drug abuse is predominantly a family phenomenon (p. 8).They argued that family therapy is therefore the logical treatment of choice. Psychoanalysis And Drug Addiction To be exact, severe drug addiction is considered as being motivated by contradictory and unsettled comparative kinematicsthat drawn from the premature systematizing relations in a individuals lives. As far as drug addiction is concerned, the terms of this disagreement disc over solid look in distinguishing actions of using drugs that provide to spread it with the help of the mutual results of reinforcement and disguise.The mark of treatment is for long-suffering and psychoanalyst to uncover the constituents of the relational ties that are embedded in the drug use, to reformulate these forces in figurative expressions, and tore-check them in the kinematics of the change, next to prospects for latest exchange. Seen this way, the treatment requirements of drug exploiters can finely be convened by psychoanalysis, improved by other methods essential for dealing with addiction.In the past drug addiction has been shut out from psychoanalysis and this method of treatment, clearly in its insinuation, might appear merely to validate that standing. Doing psychoanalysis treatment of drug users, comparing with other treatment methods, educates awareness on these zest states and uses replacement as a remedial instrument. No matter what the stress of the theory or character of the foundation, each analysis of addictive disorder that represent on entity associations tacitly contribute to a common principle that the action of drug use comes into view as a result of desire.Whilst created by a lot of dependent variables, an operation of severe drug use, if intra-psychically inspected, at all condemnations corresponds to an attempt to bring about inner alteration, or outside reaction, in a exacting, approved method. Almond (1997) has described desire as a personal conditiona signature of total control or powerthat the person endeavours to bring about with his action and/or fantasy (p. 3). By these stipulations, an action of excessive drug use signifies a fundamental, desire condition and is a means to implement it, whether with regard to effects desired in the self or others in the outside world.Rik destitute discussed in his book The Subject of Addiction that psychoanalysis and addiction are counterparts of the world of science and techni ques. Therefore, since, the logical dialogue centers on the issue and the drug users relationship to his reason of desire. In an intelligent approach, Rik Loose depicts the reason of globalization that requires our times and counters to it as a organization governed by desire and ideals. (Loose, 2002)Psychoanalysts who run with drug users know that the act of drug use is an indicative result of a procedure of preceding(prenominal) changes. The language of diversity, acknowledged as a upstart construction for intellect, allows us to spot the drug user as careworn into specific states of mind comprising of particular influence, feelings regarding the person himself and others, feelings concerning the worldthat augment the desires and cravings that are imprisoned and apparently recognized in typical action of drug use.One might also say that, for a given drug consumer, the action of using the drug provides to intrepidly set the limits of a basic state of oneself. In fact, the prelim inary investigative mission with the drug user comprises of extricating the user from attraction with the drug in order to divert the user in its place in the self-state that portends it. Astonishingly, the standing of desire in the addiction is for the most part uncared for in drug treatment.Drug users in this kind of situations are frequently encouraged to talk to other recuperating fellows when they believe themselves to be caught up in desire to take in drug. (Loose, 2002) This suggestion regularly wielded by twelve-step companionship also, in the shape of a status offer to talk to ones supporter every time sensing the urge to take drugis evidently well planned (and, no doubt, useful at times).On the other hand this type of counselling is sightless to the internal truth of the state of desire that not just impels substance users presumptuous in their use of drugs, provided in addition alternate away understanding of other individuals in their lives to the periphery of their br ain. Moreover, yet as conventional treatment programs dedicate significant experimental condition to the issue of reversion learn drug users in relation to surroundings stimuli and inner feelings (e. g. depression, loneliness) that could encourage desires to use drugsthey pay no attention to the desire aver that the course of reversion usually serve to perform.Due to this rationale, psychoanalysis has a lot to proffer the severe drug user whilst the majority of drug treatments look forward to putting an end to drug addicting behaviour, the psycho analytic attempt would take in this objective and stretch further to investigate the desire state that uncovers end result in drug use and in other prototypes of actions in his or her life.In effect, the methodical approach would be to treat the persons drug use nevertheless look for to disengage such a symptomatic outburst from the original self-state, which has required to be conserved for its background and significance to the person and, for that basis, deserve consideration (Bromberg, 1998). transformation come in an analysis, Winnicott (1960) wrote, when the traumatic factors enter the psycho-analytic material in the patients own way, and within the patients desire (p. 37).This regulatory program line can also be functional to remedial work with drug users, whose desire intend, usually set free out there, requirement to be completely greeted into the methodical exchange. In fact, it is from the point of view of the functioning coalition nevertheless effectively realizes with a drug userthat the analyst may palpate another exchange transpiring in the transport. In it, the analyst is excluded from all events eventuating in the patients drug use and is left to feel helpless. non only is the patients move to a state of emotional cut-off a marker of desire, so is the analysts helpless state. (Loose, 2002) For it is these feelings of helplessness in the analyst that point to the history of pain or trauma in th e patient that may have showed the way to the users need for desire to start with, and to such severity. Nonetheless, certain new trends in investigative way and the significance of a relational viewpoint in understanding drug use, the mogul of psychoanalysts, amplified by understanding of addiction, can be of utmost advantage to them.That is why a relational model of psychoanalytically based treatment has significance for severe drugs users. This statement may seem surprising on two accounts psychoanalysis has often been considered useless for active drug users, and drug users have often been judged unsuitable for psychoanalysis. (Loose, 2002) both(prenominal) assumptions are false, though accepted as truths in the mental health and drug addiction treatment worlds. Recent changes that have taken place in the understanding of the psychoanalytic process make relationally informed psychoanalysis an ideal therapeutic venue for drug users.These shifts in psychoanalysis have reversed i ts previous lack of fit for drug addiction. Any Psychoanalyst who has spent time working with drug users has heard, first-hand, accounts of the disrepute of psychoanalysis from the standpoint of addicted patients. (Loose, 2002) The traditional analytic stance that emphasized observation smacked of passivity to drug users, and the priority given to aetiology over symptoms often left patients drinking and drug use unsupervised to.However contemporary psychoanalysis has shifted its style of investigation as Mitchell (1997) stated, it has moved away from reliance on interpretation and insight as the primary tools for achieving therapeutic change. Rather, psychoanalysis right away places emphasis on an analysts ability to enter into a patients dynamics, mobilized in transferencecounter transference form together with the patient to arrive at an understanding of these experiences and, in the process, to find new forms of relating for the patient to trust, in the place of old, constraini ng patterns (Mitchell, 1997 Bromberg, 1998).In short, todays psychoanalyst is every bit an engaged participant. How does this development serve the substance-using patient? The drug user tends to be a do-er and act-er, and, on technical lawsuit alone, needs an active approach to feel meaningfully engaged, even adequately gripped by the therapeutic process. However, on another level, it is precisely the drug users recourse to action to express conflicting relational needs that is the target of treatment. (Loose, 2002)Reliance on action is a cornerstone of the drug users characterologic makeup (Wurmser, 1977, 1978). It is typically this reliance that has earned him disfavour with psychoanalysts, whose work depends so on reflection and delay. Action serves many purposes for the drug user, however it is usually its antitank function that has been highlighted by theorists. In this view, as articulated by Wurmser, action gives the drug user a powerful alternative to, or, more accurately , means of escape from, painful affects and inadequate tools of symbolic expression.Drug users are notable for limitations in their symbolic functioning Wurmser termed their difficulties hypo-symbolization, describing deficits that range from a specific inability to recognize and scar feelings to a more sweeping failure to engage in fantasy or exploration of their inner lives at all. In such a view, once more elaborated by Wurmser, action serves as a special form of externalization, offering the person its magical, problem solving properties and the appearance of narcissistic control.However if, sort of of emphasizing its defensive role, we view action as the vehicle drug users have for communicating un-symbolized experience, then it is to their actions we must look for the initial outlines of their conflicts. Drug use is then far from unwelcome in undertaking analytic treatment of a person taking drugs. It is the signature act of such a patient and, as such, contains the compone nts of his unconscious and as yet un-symbolized life it is the starting point of treatment. The intended course of that treatment would then be for analyst and patient to begin to uncover the relational deadlock embedded in the drug use. (Loose, 2002)Their aim is to discover that deadlock anew in the kinematicsof the transference, often at first still involving instances of drug use, and eventually to locate it within the organizing relationships of the patients early life, ultimately replayed and addressed free of reference to drugs, within the experience of the treatment relationship. In other words, the aim of therapeutic action would be to track, and deconstruct, the symptom from its extra-psychic form, concretized in drug use, to its intra-psychic life in the patients object relations (Boesky, 2000).It is here that the needs of the person consuming drug and the current state of psychoanalytic practice converge. Enactments, whereby patients draw their analysts into jointly reali zing fantasized aspects of their object relations, play a recognized role in analytic practice today. Though theorists of various schools differ in their understanding of enactments, view of the analysts role, and sense of their therapeutic value, there is general agreement in the field that enactments are inevitable manifestations of transferencecounter-transference forces at work in the analytic process (Ellman and Moskowitz, 1998).In relational theory, in particular, enactments are regarded not only as unavoidable, however also as the central medium of the work. They are the means through which patient and analyst are afforded the chance to revive old relational patterns jointly, as well as to reopen them to observation, understanding, and possibilities for change within the analytic relationship (Mitchell, 1997 Bromberg, 1998). By placing enactment at the disembodied spirit of analytic work, relational practitioners have opened the door of psychoanalysis to substance using pat ients.This is so for several reasons first, enactments provide drug users with a mode of discourse tailor made to their needs to actualize, rather than reflect on, inner experience (Boesky, 2000). More important, enactments are a conduit for experience whose transitional properties uniquely serve the drug useroffering not only a bridge between the patients symptomatic behaviour outside the consulting room to his conduct within the treatment, however also, more generally, a bridge between action and meaning, drug and object, act of drug use and underlying relational needs.In theory and approach, then, the relational model provides the basis for the desired course of treatment for drug users. To be sure, no treatment of drug addiction could be effective by attend to the relational underpinnings of drug use alone. Severe drug use is a dangerous and potentially life-threatening problem however derived, it nonetheless is sustained by the powerful pharmacological effects of drugs and th e operation of the laws of conditioning on peoples behaviour. (Loose, 2002)Any Psychoanalyst working with a person taking drug must have a working knowledge of a range of ancillary treatment modalities commonly needed during the course of their treatment. Such approaches include use of cognitive-behavioural interventions, referrals to residential or intensive outpatient programs, support for participation in 12-step programs, use of toxicology tests, and use of pharmaco-therapies designed to counteract or inhibit drug effects (for example, disulfiram for alcoholics, naltrexone for opiate addicts).Purely speaking, then, any treatment of active drug user is, by force, integrative in practice, if, ultimately, psychoanalytic in design. However, if appropriately used, such supplementary therapies do not necessarily compromise the analytic task in fact, it is my argument that the particular tools summoned during the course of any one patients treatment arelike his drug useuniquely customi zed to fit his relational needs and are therefore best understood within a psychoanalytic framework.