The regulatory function of addiction: Maintaining internal cohesion by the drugging of parts of the personality

Abstract

The attempt not to think or to block out particular mental contents is cited by addicts as a motivation for intoxication as frequently as the need to escape any external set of circumstances. Compulsive drug use may therefore be seen as an attempt to obliterate particular states of mind. In this paper addicts are considered as dangerously addicted to a loss of contact with parts of the mind as they are to a given drug. A splitting off, for example, of loving and nurturing or hateful parts of the personality is effected where these cannot be tolerated by or integrated into a pathological internal constellation. Deficits in early caregiving and environment as well as constitutional factors play a part in this. Addiction is therefore seen as an unconscious attempt to maintain a precarious inner equilibrium by destroying contact with parts of the personality, literally through their drugging. In psychic reality or in phantasy this may be felt as a slicing up or tearing to pieces, and so subjugation of objects. A clinical example will illustrate this idea.