ABSTRACT
The thesis is straightaway appealing when psychoanalyst's think of how many adolescents flaunt and brag about their smoking and drinking. This is motivated by a denied yet persisting fear of activities that are a prerogative of the adult, such as smoking and drinking are in our culture. Addiction may be the symptom of a variety of forms of psychopathology. Phobia, too, is a symptom that occurs outside the specific pathological entity E. L. Freud called "anxiety hysteria." The object of both fears is the frustrating mother from whom the angry child's hatred seems to emanate. The misunderstanding stems from the fact that the two authors mentioned strove toward the metapsychological elucidation of the personality that tends to be addicted. They both seem to have come to the conclusion that the terminal stage of the severe disorder was characterized by a breakdown of the defensive maneuvers and consisted in regressive pleasure seeking.
