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Psychodynamic therapy focuses on unconscious processes as they are manifested in the client's present behavior.

The following discussion is restricted to the psychodynamic study of “compulsive drug use,” which, as a rule, is based on severe inner conflicts, developmental disturbances, and serious family pathology.

By James V. Spotts, Ph.D. Franklin C. Shonts, Ph.D. A complete account of the causes of drug use and abuse must consider at least three groups of factors: physiological, social, and psychological.

By Harvey Milkman, Ph.D. William Frosch, M.D. This theoretical approach is based on the formulation that disturbances in the normally expected mastery of phase-specific conflicts during early childhood may induce severe “primitive” psychopathologies, the addictions being prominent among these.

Viewed from a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective, drug dependency can best be understood by examining how such a person’s ego organization and sense of self serve or fail the individual’s attempts to cope.

The NIDA Division of Research, Clinical- Behavioral Branch convened a group of psychoanalysts, psychiatrists and psychologists who had demonstrated an interest in understanding substance use from a psychodynamic point of view. The preliminary results of this effort are represented by the content of this monograph.

The quality of treatment and likelihood of successful therapeutic outcome will focus on both the individual’s intrapsychic dynamics and relevant external factors.

Over the past two decades research in drug dependence has focused primarily on individual drugs. Missing has been an equivalent emphasis at the level of the individual person, focused on the structure and dynamics of the total personality.

The concept of looking at family members in the etiology and maintenance of psychoactive substance use disorders dates back to the early 1930s...