Determining what heroin means to heroin addicts

• Published in: Diseases of the nervous system Vol. 36; no. 2; p. 77
• Main Authors: Tokar, J T, Brunse, A J, Stefflre, V J, Sodergren, J A, Napior, D A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.02.1975
• Subjects: Adult; Attitude; Depression; Efficiency; Euphoria; Frustration; Heroin Dependence - classification; Humans; Identity Crisis; Interpersonal Relations; Interview, Psychological; Linguistics; Male; Middle Aged; Military Psychiatry; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychological Tests; Psychometrics; Self Concept; Social Isolation; United States; Work; United States
• ISSN: 0012-3714

For purposes of treatment, description, typological and psychological instrumentation, agreement judgements were obtained from 20 heroin addicts and 51 normal controls on data matrices constructed from sentences obtained from the heroin addicts. Correlations demonstrate controls are similar to one another and qualitatively different from addicts. Multidimensional scaling techniques and perspective summary maps demonstrate these differences and provide the technology for developing a typology of addicts for future studies. Heroin addicts have an inability to tolerate frustration, a depressive core, a negative sense of identity and a sense of futility and isolation. Heroin addicts deviate from normals at well beyond the p less than .001 level of significance in using heroin to handle problems that normals handle in other ways. For treatment of the addict, the drug must be withdrawn and new ways of coping with old needs must be taught. This matrix qualitatively demonstrates and pinpoints the deficiencies and excesses of the addict which need treatment. The epidemiology of drug use relating narcotics, delinquency, and social policy has been well documented (Chein, 1964). One major problem posed by narcotic addition is the problem of getting people to stay off drugs (withdrawal). Another major problem is the alleviation of the human misery that motivates drug use (rehabilitation). (Jaffee, 1970, Chein, 1964). In addition to the above, a problem of recent importance has been the key question of whether or not the Vietnam addicts differ basically from addicts socialized in the drug culture in the united States. (Walsh, 1971). Numerous investigators have discussed personality and addiction (Chein, 1964; Eddy, 1965, Jaffee, 1970) usually from the vantage point of the investigators. This study attempted to describe the personalities of heroin addicts from the vantage point of the addicts using instruments borrowed from descriptive semantics. (Goodenough, 1967; Stefflre, Reich, Wendell, 1967). The purpose of the pilot study was to: 1) determine where heroin positioned in the conceptual frames of reference of heroin addicts and non-addicted control subjects, 2) to establish a classification procedure for determining subtypes of heroin addicts, and 3) to demonstrate the usefulness of a linguistically based instrument in application in clinical psychiatry.