In the treatment of addictions and their psychological understanding, cognitive-behavioural and motivation approaches have been paramount. In contrast, the psychodynamic contribution has been muted. This book redresses this imbalance by bringing together a team of senior clinicians with psychotherapeutic backgrounds as well as extensive experience in addiction. Stress is placed on the diversity of psychodynamic understanding and its relevance to the everyday problems met by addicted individuals. The first theoretical part of the book is followed by examples from group and individual therapy, and the foreword is written by Dr Edward Khantzian. The Psychodynamics of Addiction will be of interest to psychotherapists who may lack experience in addiction, and to other clinicians working in the field - doctors, nurses and psychologists. Introduction - Review of Different Schools: Container and Contained: The School of Bion - The Application of Bowlby’s Attachment Theory to the Psychotherapy of Addictions - The Vulnerable Self: Heinz Kohut and the Addictions - Therapy: Dynamics of Addiction in the Clinical Situation - Psychodynamic Assessment of Drug Addicts - Individual Psychotherapy with Addicted People - Group Therapy for Addiction - Helping the Helpers: Psychodynamic Perspective on Relapse Prevention in Addiction - In Search of A Reliable Container: Staff Supervision in a DDU -Countertransference with Addicts - Addiction and the Family: Growing up with Alchohol or Drug Abuse in the Family - References - Index

This book provides clinicians and students with insights on the use of psychodynamic therapy to treat drug abuse and addiction, combining theory with clinical case material. The perspectives of analysts such as Abraham, Rado, Zimmel, Tibout, Wurmser, Khanzian, Krystal and McDougall are reviewed alongside original and more recent conceptualizations of drug addiction and recovery based on Kleinian, Winnicottian and Kohutian ideas. The case material deals with clinical phenomena that characterize working with this complex population, such as intense projective identification, countertransference difficulties and relapses. The theoretical analysis covers a range of concepts, such as John Steiner's psychic shelters and Betty Joseph's near-death-addiction, which are yet to be fully explored in the context of addiction. Prevalent topics in the addiction field, such as the reward system, the cycle of change and the 12-step program, are also discussed in relation to psychodynamic theory and practice. Written by an experienced therapist, Psychodynamic Approaches for Treatment of Drug Abuse and Addiction is useful reading for anyone looking to understand how psychodynamic thought is applicable in the treatment of drug abuse and addiction. It may also be of some relevance to those working on treating alcohol use disorders and behavioral addictions.

What can psychoanalysis contribute to an understanding of the etiology, treatment, and prevention of substance abuse? Here, Louis Berger contests both the orthodox view of substance abuse as a "disease" explicable within the medical model, and the fashionable dissenting view that substance abuse is a habit controllable through the "willpower" fostered by superficial treatment approaches. According to Berger, substance abuse is first and foremost a symptom. He argues that it is only by grasping this fact that we can understand why standard approaches to treatment and prevention have failed. Berger invokes a wide spectrum of recent analytic insights about infant and child development, the psychology of narcissism, and primitive character disorders in making the case that substance abuse masks serious preoedipal (or "midrange") psychopathology. Such psychopathology, operating at both cultural and person levels, explains why certain individuals become dependent on illicit drugs; it is equally revelatory of why the substance abuse "establishment" -- and society at large -- continues to misconstrue the nature of the problem and to proffer ill-conceived and ineffective remedies. After thoroughly examining the motives, conscious and unconscious, that maintain "mainstream" myths about substance abuse, Berger points the way to alternative approaches to prevention and treatment.

This book will help therapists understand and treat patients suffering from mild to dangerous forms of eating disorders, other compulsions and addictions, such as alcoholism, and even erotic attachments. The chapters help therapists think creatively about these types of patients who are coming to therapy more frequently than ever, and to see the effects of treatment. The problems that arise in therapy are explored in essays about dissociation, self-regulation, self-destructive behavior, enactment, and other clinical issues. The first half of the book addresses specific problems associated with patients who have eating disorders. The editors explore the patient's conflicts, affect regulation, transference, behavior, as well as the countertransference issues that inevitably arise in therapy. The second half broadens the scope and addresses a spectrum of addictions and associated issues such as creativity, sexuality and the transference.

The Psychodynamics and Psychology of Gambling is the first volume in the four-volume The Gambling Theory and Research Series. Author Mikal Aasved felt a need to fill what he perceived to be a lack of background sources or reviews of literature pertaining to gambling theory and research. This series will present major findings of leading researchers as they study the causes and effects of gambling, both recreational and excessive. This first entry in the series reviews the most influential psychodynamic and psychological theories that explain why people gamble. Psychoanalytical theorists discussed include Freud, Von Hattingberg, Fenichel, Bergler, Simmel, Greenson, Stekel, and others. Aasved includes sections on behavioral (learning or reinforcement theory) psychological approaches to gambling with discussion of Skinner's ideas and research findings as well as Pavlov's principles. This book begins with the question 'Why do people gamble?' and offers many theories proposed by clinicians, laboratory and field researchers, and participants as they seek to explain the motivation behind gambling. The differences between gambling as entertainment and gambling compulsion is a focus of much research. Aasved addresses ideas set forth as to why some people are able to control their gambling and others cannot, even when it means sacrificing their jobs, family, and material possessions. This text provides a comprehensive background into theories of addiction research as studied by leaders in the field.