Drug Dependence: The Disturbances in Personality Functioning That Create the Need for Drugs (Master Work Series)

This book is a psychoanalytic study of the disturbances in personality functioning that create the need for drugs. Dr. Henry Krystal and Dr. Herbert A. Raskin both practicing psychoanalysts, examine the dynamics of the developments of affects and object-relations in drug dependency, demonstrating how drugs are used for the relief of painful states. This work is an especially useful addition to the literature on addiction and its treatment by professional persons since in analyzing the dynamics of drug dependence, the authors have an eye toward the modifications in the techniques of psychotherapy that would be most effective with drug dependent individuals. Their conclusion examines the possibilities of a "preparatory state" of therapy in which a patient's affect tolerance can be built up.