ABSTRACT
This chapter argues the definition of alcoholism as 'a chronic disease that interferes with the drinker's health or social or economic functioning'. In a paper on manic mood-disorder dating back to 1903, Jung, describes cases of alcoholism connected with emotional abnormality instead of using the then current psychiatric terms of 'moral defect or insanity' or 'psychopathic instability'. The relation between addiction and manic-depressive disorder is elaborated in psychodynamic terms in Rosenfeld's paper on drug addiction. A number of addicted patients are capable of forming transferences in the analytical setting but the analyst is no longer able to be a good enough substitute for the imageless model of wholeness with which the patient's ego is fused, nor can the patient go on imagining that he is self-sufficient. The point of practical importance is that transference interpretations that make the patient aware of his dependence on the analyst can trigger off the well-known vicious circle.
