Self-Representation and the Capacity for Self-Care

Some of the early analysts, especially Abraham (1908, 1924), Simmel (1930, 1948), and Rado (1926, 1933), contributed significant insight into the psychodynamics of alcoholism and drug addiction, and in the process they enriched psychoanalysis. As pessimism shrouded the prospects of individual analytic therapy for these patients, we lost interest in them and thereby lost the opportunity to learn from working with them. Symptomatic of this impoverishment of our studies is the absence of a course on problems of alcohol or other drug dependence from the curricula of all psychoanalytic institutes affiliated with the American Psychoanalytic Association (Handler, 1977). The Board of Professional Standards of the American Psychoanalytic Association (1985) neither requires nor recommends any instruction in the area of addictions.