I deal with a video about the social dimension of addiction. It is a TED’s video entitled « Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong ». This topic is adressedby Johann Hary, who is a British journalist and writer. TED’s conferences are recognized to bring new ideas about many subjects like science with psychololy for example, with an objective : change our ideas and change the world with those ideas. TED’s conferences have been created by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marques in nineteen-ninety-nine and nowadays, this event is led by ChrisAnderson, with The Sapling Foudation.
There are several main ideas in this document. First, he begins to say one thing : to ban drugs was to motivate drug addicts to stop their consommation but in reality, to ban drugs is a punition.
Then, he talks about theory of addiction which is the story about « chemical hooks », with the idea that drug has a physical addicting potential. However, it’s missing a dimension to understand addiction : this is the third idea, the social dimension of addiction.
Indeed, the main idea in this document is that the drug is a way to connect with something, when the person cannot bond with other people. Addiction is an adaptation to his environment. The word addiction is wrong, we should appoint it « bonding ».
His last idea is the means to help addict people : there is more results when we help addict people to find a purpose of life than to punish them. It is in relation to bonding : drug addict needs to bond, to connect with other. So, it is necessary to help to reconnection, reintegration into society and not to be a limit in it.
The target audience is everybody : a closefriend to a drug addict, a healthcare professional, scientists who works on addiction, or just a person who is interested in this topic, so it is for non-specialists and specialists. I found it very interesting that the speaker explains his steps in his discovery of dimensions of addiction : he went in the field to meet drug addicts and scientists.
The title of video is truth : the speaker brings us to reconsider our misconceptions about addiction.
I think to consider addiction with a social dimension in addition to others addiction’s theories allows to humanize relations between professional and family with drug addicts. Moreover, this document is relevant because it gives us a new perspective in therapy with drug addicts.
So, I want to finish to highlight some informations whose are important for me and to remember too. Each symptom, each psychopathology have a sense, a function like addiction. I remember a text called « L’addiction à l’autre : réflexion sur les néo-sexualités et la sexualité addictive », written by Joyce McDougall. It deals with sexual addiction and the author writes that addiction exists to fill a void by a substitute which is addiction. In this case, it is to fill a lack of parental presence, which will create a lack of comprehension about relation and family, a lack of feeling of internal safety. All addictions takes place in person’s life because there is a void into them. For homeostasis which the human being needs to live, the person has to fill this gap to survive.
Words I have learned:
- To appoint (verb) = désigner, nommer
- To ban (verb) = interdire
- A drug addict (noun) = un toxicomane, un drogué
- A misconception (noun) = une fausse idée
- To bond (verb) = se lier, se connecter
Written by Marine RODAK, M2 PCPI