OPIATE ADDICTION TREATMENT: A NEUROPSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH

Program Description

Sobriety alone doesn't guarantee a good life. Medication may not be enough and the talking approach of AA and NA has never proven to be enough. Through addiction, the neurology, biology and psychology of the addict has been altered, maybe forever.
A number of psychological treatments have developed to treat the addict, such as cognitive behavioral therapy. But the last treatment one would expect to be useful is psychoanalysis, or psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Now with the integration of neuroscience and psychoanalytically oriented approaches, therapists have a new weapon to understand and deeply help addicts. We can finally begin to understand that one aspect of the personality of the addict does not always know what the other is doing! We can understand why addicts would choose their drug dealer over their closest and dearest relatives and friends.

Learning Objectives

1. Recognize the reasons why heroin and opiate addicts relapse
2. Learn a quick and easy test for tracking improvement in brain functioning in addicts.
3. Understand the complex relationship between addict and dealer and how that gets lived out in the transference relationship between the addict and therapist.
4. Appreciate the meaning of the opiate to the addict.
5. Be able to describe the concept of addictive splitting.

Interviews