Simulated Selfhood, Authentic Dialogue: An Intersubjective-Systems Look at Treating Addiction

ABSTRACT

Addiction is notoriously difficult to treat. In this paper, I argue for the efficacy of a relationally analytic approach, as addictions often operate within malattuned, divisive relational contexts, providing a fleeting but vitalizing self-restoration. A debilitating subjective and intersubjective divisiveness often develops within such contexts, frequently marked by Brandchaftian accommodation and affective rigidity. Addictions are often derivative of such relational trauma—allowing analysts, with perseverance, experimentation, and perhaps some luck, to provide mitigation in a developmentally restorative context. I present a case study that highlights such a hard-won, mitigating relatedness, in employing an intersubjective-systems perspective. Obstacles arise from both the addicted patient’s compulsive aversions to vulnerability, any trace of “dependence,” and from my own co-transference. My own self-reflection reveals a discomfort with the patient’s rigid yet chaotic aversions against emotionality, and my subtle dismissal of his explanations of the importance of marijuana. He and his mother, meanwhile, struggle within an mutually enslaving system, demanding compulsive riddance of vulnerability and compliance from others—including the beleaguered analyst. Eventually the patient’s family context is seen to parallel my own archaically traumatizing environment, an analogous “hijacking” of authenticity. This difficult stretching of reflectivity, together with some of my own personal experience with addition, leads to my own differentiation from transferential rigidity. A dyadic loosening occurs, with a reinforcement of the analytic frame, and my deeper understanding of the patient’s dilemma; this recognition frees the patient to self-initiate steps towards expansiveness, easing his compulsive reliance on antidotal and isolating self-protections.

KEYWORDS:

• Addiction
• intersubjective-systems
• compulsivity
• alcoholism
• porn-addiction
• accommodation
• enmeshment
• codependence

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Darren Haber

Darren Haber, PsyD, MFT, is a psychoanalyst practicing in west Los Angeles. He specializes in treating childhood trauma, addiction (including children/partners of alcoholics) and men’s issues. He has a deep passion for analytic literature, as a reader and writer. He will be delivering a paper this fall in Vancouver at the annual IAPSP conference, on the relationally analytic treatment of addiction. His paper “Yearning for Godot” won the 2017 Dr. Daphne S. Stolorow Memorial Essay award, as well as the 2016 IJPSP Best Candidate Essay contest. It was published in Psychoanalysis: Self and Context. His paper “Intimate Strangers” also won a 2018 Daphne S. Stolorow award, and is being published this fall with PSA. An earlier paper, “Accommodating Brandchaft,” is included in the current issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry. Darren was an “Early Career” fellow at the 2017 IJPSP Conference in Chicago. He frequently guest-teaches ICP classes and monthly study groups. Finally, he was a guest on the weekly radio talk-show “Engaging Minds,” and blogs regularly on GoodTherapy.org, Psychology Today and other sites. He also enjoys writing fiction and plays.