ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the psychoanalytic study of the psychopathological changes that can be detected in the treatment of drug addicts, based on the clinical evolution of several such patients. It provides new concepts explained on the basis of the theory of the primitive psychotic body image as well as the idea that addicts are in a continuous search for primitive autistic sensations. New ideas related to life, death, and suicide in addicted patients are developed. The management of the patient who is addicted to drugs is particularly difficult because the analyst is dealing not only with a specific set of symptoms, but also at the same time with the combination of a mental state and the intoxication and confusion derived from drug use. In psychotic patients with serious disturbances in the early object relation with their mothers, it is realized that their link with living objects is not stable, because living objects are confused with inanimate objects.
