Psychological Approaches: Factors within the individual

1
Psychological ApproachesFactors within the
individual

• Three Main Categories
• Psychodynamic
• Personality traits
• Behaviour learning

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Psychodynamic Approach

• Causes of addiction lie within unconscious
• Deeply repressed, negative emotions drive us to
  behave in a self-destructive, addictive manner
• Based on works of Freud and Erikson
• Both theorists assert that contributing factors
  stem from early experiences with parents

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Freud

• 3 components of personality
• ID ? infancy
• EGO ? toddler years
• SUPEREGO ? preschool years
• Addicted person has Id as strongest element, due
  to poor parenting
• Ego superego have not effectively developed ?
  person is impulsive, self-centred, and demanding

4
Erikson

• Personality formed as result of 8 ego conflicts
  experienced over the life course
• Trust vs. mistrust (0)
• Autonomy vs. doubt shame (1-3)
• Initiative vs. guilt (3-6)
• Industry vs. inferiority (6-12)
• Identity vs. role confusion (12-20)
• Intimacy vs. isolation (20-40)
• Generativity vs. stagnation (40-65)
• Ego integrity vs. despair

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Erikson contd

• The dominant force of our personality depends on
  the social experiences we have at the time of the
  conflict
• The first 2 ego conflicts have a significant
  impact on addiction
• Birth 1 year ? unresponsive or inconsistent
  care giving breeds mistrust
• 1-3 years ? physical discipline and inflexibility
  breeds doubt and shame

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Personality Trait Approach

• Certain traits are inborn (rather than acquired)
  and increase risk of addictive behaviour
• Personality traits are CAUSES of addiction (not
  effects)
• Traits of alcoholic high levels of anxiety, low
  self-esteem, high impulsivity, depression
• These traits bear upon our interactions with
  others, our ability to cope with life stresses,
  etc.

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Behaviour Learning Approach

• Based on works of Pavlov and Skinner
• Involves identifying S-R-C
• Pavlov all behaviour is caused by some event or
  stimulus
• Skinner all behaviour is maintained by certain
  results or consequences

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Pavlovs Classical Conditioning

• Begins with reflex
• Food --------------? mouth waters
• UCS --------------? UCR
• Paired with something neutral
• Light food --------? mouth waters
• When pairings occur frequently enough, or are in
  some way significant enough
• Light --------------? mouth waters
• CS ----------------? CR

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Pavlov contd

• Addiction is a conditioned or learned response
• Addiction stimulus paired with addictive
  substance/behaviour, then may come to cause
  desire to indulge in continued use
• Connection can be broken by
• Extinction no more pairing
• Counterconditioning repairing

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Skinners Operant Conditioning

• Highlights response-consequence connection ?
  consequences of behaviour keep it going
• Reinforcement consequences (good) that increase
  repetition of behaviour
• Positive directly rewarding
• Negative avoid or escape discomfort/pain
• Punishment consequences (bad) that decrease
  repetition of behaviour

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Skinner contd

• The power of consequences affected by frequency,
  regularity, immediacy, and significance/uniqueness
  in relation to other experiences
• Addiction ? reinforcements are often regular, and
  immediate punishments do not occur until after
  considerable delay
• Once a behaviour is established, partial
  reinforcement is more resistant to extinction
  than continuous reinforcement

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Solomons Opponent Process Theory

• Assumes that the brain is programmed to correct
  emotional states (both pleasurable and aversive)
  to maintain homeostasis
• We have an innate capacity to regulate our
  emotions ? related to survival (i.e. we perform
  better when our emotions are on an even keel ?
  allows us to concentrate)

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Solomon contd

• Affective contrasts ? when a strong emotion is
  aroused, the opposite emotion occurs when the
  stimulus is removed
• Affective habituation ? the positive emotion will
  lessen in intensity over time, requiring higher
  levels of stimulation
• Affective withdrawal ? the opposing emotional low
  is greater, requiring more intense stimulation to
  feel good again

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Application

• Affective contrast ? Compulsive gamblers
  experience a high when placing a bet. Once
  result is known, they experience a downer
• Affective habituation ? gamblers bet needs to
  get bigger and bigger to produce the same levels
  of excitement
• Affective withdrawal ? the downers will become
  increasingly painful and sense of loss becomes
  more intense as gambling spirals out of control
  and bets become riskier in attempt to recover
  losses

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Solomon contd

• Addictive behaviour avoidance of deepening
  unpleasant feelings which have occurred following
  pleasant feelings
• As process progresses, each opposing emotion
  compensates in more drastic degrees ? compulsion,
  tolerance, withdrawal, and negative consequences
  become increasingly severe

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Treatment suggested bySkinner Solomon

• Aversive therapy ? involves having persons
  experience unpleasantness (or less intense
  goodness) when initiating the positive stimulus
  (addictive behaviour) ? i.e. coating fingers of a
  bulimic
• Cognitive aversive therapy ? an attempt to
  accomplish this through mental imaging (has
  limited success)