ABSTRACT
After a psychology degree, Marion Bower trained as a social worker and then as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist; she currently works at the Tavistock Clinic and in private practice, her experience of young people abusing alcohol coming from both settings.
This chapter moves from a sociological commentary on the developing culture of binge drinking (particularly in young girls) to the central importance of the adolescent process in which the experiences of infancy are revisited. Given that separation from the parents is the prime task of adolescence, pathological experiences of separation in infancy are reawakened; the ensuing anxiety is contained by the pharmacological and psychological powers of alcohol in increasing amounts.
The chapter explores the complex symbolic meanings of alcohol to the young person using Kleinian developmental theory, particularly projective identification and the death instinct, a later component of Freud’s thinking. Throughout, the clinical material emphasizes the fear of dependency and the possibility of loss; such closeness is to be avoided at all costs yet it is that trusting relationship which is most 52 needed. Bower stresses the importance of not giving up on the addict despite his or her attacks on the therapy—a theme apparent in many of the chapters in this book.
