Fragmented Intimacy: Addiction in a Social World - Softcover

Adams, Peter J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1441924868 ISBN 13: 9781441924865

Publisher: Springer, 2010

Synopsis

Here is the first major work that examines the benefits of applying social understanding to addiction. Traditional approaches have been dominated by what the book labels "particle" perspectives, in which treatment focuses on the person experiencing the addiction. Despite decades of research, particle-based approaches have yielded marginal results in reducing addiction. The author demonstrates how a social perspective shifts the paradigm from viewing a person in terms of particles to viewing a person in terms of relationships. This reorientation creates promising new opportunities for intervention. The book discusses recent advances in theories on community capacity building, resilience, and social ecology alongside their practical applications for psychologists, addiction counselors, and social workers. Written in an accessible and engaging style, the book features numerous vignettes, key points, and illustrations that demonstrate the relevance of content to addiction intervention.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Adams has a practice background in clinical psychology and an academic background in critical social theory. He is currently Director of Social and Community Health at the School of Population Health, Auckland University, Auckland, New Zealand. He has developed and taught in postgraduate programs on addictions for the past ten years. Ideas for the book evolved from his 25-year involvement in research, teaching, and clinical intervention involving different aspects of addiction.

From the Back Cover

Fragmented Intimacy transcends familiar concepts of addiction by focusing not on addicts in isolation but on the social contexts that are disrupted and on the struggle that affects all those involved as they attempt to regroup and initiate change. Applicable to drugs, alcohol, and gambling, this engagingly written book offers both innovative theory and practice-strengthening interventions.

Peter Adams’ social-ecology framework examines in depth how addiction disrupts social identity, becoming the dominant relationship in a person’s life and leading thereby to a weakening of connections to family, friends, workplace, and community. It examines how in the long-term course of an addiction one-on-one counseling will have little effect unless it assists in the re-engagement of these core intimacies. The author enhances the reader’s understanding with vignettes of addicted individuals’ lives as relationships are altered (and insights from such chemically-intimate authors as Burroughs and Poe), new takes on the therapeutic relationship, and examples of families, neighborhoods, and communities mobilizing as powerful forces for re-entry.

A sample of the coverage:

• Rethinking addiction through the lens of intimacy.
• Social processes in intimacy versus social processes in addiction.
• Effects of addiction throughout the individual’s social networks.
• Opportunities for intervention at different stages of addiction.
• Resilience building at the individual, family, and community levels.
• Guidelines for family members in initiating change.
• Using social approaches to complement mainstream forms of therapy―starting with assessment.

Fragmented Intimacy provides fresh perspective and new tools for frontline addiction counselors,clinical and health psychologists, social workers, and public health professionals while remaining accessible to the researcher or student in these fields. Its focus on the role of intimacy also provides a useful guide to family members in their response to addicted loved ones.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1441924868
• ISBN 13: 9781441924865
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352