a self-medication motive

Clearly, there are other determinants of addiction, but I believe a self-medication motive is one of the more compelling reasons for overuse of and dependency on drugs. Clinical findings based on psychoanalytic formulations have been consistent with and complemented by diagnostic and treatment studies that support this perspective, which, I believe, will enable researchers and clinicians to further understand and treat addictive behavior. Rather than simply seeking escape, euphoria, or self-destruction, addicts are attempting to medicate themselves for a range of psychiatric problems and painful emotional states. Although most such efforts at self-treatment are eventually doomed, given the hazards and complications of longterm, unstable drug use patterns, addicts discover that the short-term effects of their drugs of choice help them to cope with distressful subjective states and an external reality otherwise experienced as unmanageable or overwhelming. I believe that the perspective provided by the self-medication hypothesis has enabled me and others to understand better the nature of compulsive drug use and that it has provided a useful rationale in considering treatment alternatives. The heuristic value of this hypothesis might also help us to more effectively understand and treat the most recent elusive addiction, cocaine dependence.

References

Khantzian, E. J. 1985. “The self-medication hypothesis of addictive disorders: focus on heroin and cocaine dependence.” The American Journal of Psychiatry 142 (11): 1259–64. doi:10.1176/ajp.142.11.1259.