Main description:

In Treating Addiction: Beyond the Pain, Edward Khantzian offers a collection of his recent works on the study and treatment of substance abuse and addiction. Based on his five decades of experience in working with substance dependent individuals, this volume builds upon Khantzian's theory of addiction as self-medication and provides insights into how addiction is rooted in human psychological suffering, and not pleasure seeking or self-destruction. Almost without exception, life histories of human discomfort, disconnection, and unhappiness leave those so burdened to be vulnerable to the appeal of addictive drugs, including alcohol. Khantzian's sensitive teaching voice weaves together an annotated collection of previously published papers into a powerful and engaging volume of effective practice-based treatments. A timely complement to his earlier collection Treating Addiction as a Human Process, this book provides an inclusive and accessible resource for mental health professionals from any background as well as graduate students and those in training.

Contents:

Foreword by Martin Weegmann
Introduction
Part I. The Internal Terrain of Addiction Psychodynamics
1. Understanding Addictive Vulnerability: An Evolving Psychodynamic Perspective

2. Questions of Substance: Psychodynamic Reflections On Addictive Vulnerability and
Treatment

3. Addiction: Why Are Some of Us More Vulnerable Than Others
4. The Capacity for Self-Care and Addiction

5. The Self-Medication Hypothesis and Attachment Theory: Pathways for Understanding and
Ameliorating Addictive Suffering

Part II. The Self-Medication Hypothesis Revisited
6. The SMH and Addiction as a Problem in Self-Regulation
7. The Self-Medication Hypothesis Revisited: The Dually Diagnosed Patient
8. Self-Medication Hypothesis: Connecting Affective Experience and Drug Choice
9. The Self-Medication Hypothesis and Psychostimulant Treatment of Cocaine Dependence: An Update
10. The Psychodynamics of Addiction and Its Treatment: An Interview with New Therapist Magazine

Part III. Treatment of Addictive Disorders
11. Reflections on Group Treatments as a Corrective for Addictive Vulnerability

12. More Reflections on Group Therapy (Interview by Martin Weegmann)

13. 'Dangerous Desires and Inanimate Attachments': Modern Psychodynamic Approaches to Substance Misuse

14. Reflections on Treating Addictive Disorders: A Psychodynamic Perspective

15. A Psychodynamic Perspective on the Efficacy of 12-Step Programs
Part IV. Reflections and Lessons Learned
16. We Are All At Least a Little Lost and Off-Putting: On Transformation

17. Tragic Trends in the Treatment of Addictive Illness
18. Insights on the Insanity of Addiction
19. The Cruel Scourge of Addiction: An Addiction Psychiatrist's Clinical View
20. Life Learned from Addictions
21. Psychophobia and Getting it Right
22. The Theory of Self-Medication and Addiction