Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Psychology of addiction'

Treatment of addictive processes is one of the specialties of clinical psychology. Practitioners hone their skills to relieve the suffering and ill affects of substance use. This dissertation explored sugar use, as an addictive process, through the lens of emotional regulation, addressing the research question: What is the lived experience of emotional regulation through sugar addiction? The study specifically excluded treatment.

Review of literature revealed ways to treat, supplement, or kick the sugar habit, examined sugar addiction qualifiers by comparing them to neural correlates of other drug dependencies, and provided recovering food and sugar addicts’ insights into America’s food supply and the harmful deceptions perpetuated by its food industry. The Food Addiction Institute’s library maintains over 2,700 peer reviewed articles.

The study employed a phenomenological research method to look at six co-participants’ lived experience—idiographically, to determine what characteristics and themes are unique to each co-participant, and nomothetically, to determine what universally characterizes the whole group.

Co-participant entry into the study required meeting the thresholds for the Yale Food Addiction Scale, abbreviated version. Interview transcripts provided a rich data base for analysis. Idiographic essential descriptions were used to create a narrative for each co-participant. The nomothetic aggregate used common denominators to create a universal picture of the whole group.

This study aimed for a greater understanding of the interdependent nature of sugar and emotions. What might a sugar addicted population express that facilitates recovery and emotional regulation? Due to its qualitative approach to data acquisition the research was personal and explored beyond the surface to obtain a unique and individualized story, yet was able to identify a picture common to the whole group.

The lived experience revealed that envy, deprivation, fear of sugar’s control, and lack of support from authority figures contributed to an inability to get enough of comfort foods or to stop overconsumption, and contributed to feelings of guilt, shame, and loss. Co-participants expressed excitement and gratitude that someone was interested in this topic.

This study examines the role of the intuitive function in addiction recovery. Addictive behaviors create an internal state dominated by imbalanced instinctual drives. The psychological manifestations are obsessive thoughts, anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, and a sense of isolation. This research explored how subtle unconscious influences like the intuitive function have a role in shifting this treacherous internal state. Intuition is a prominent spectrum function which bridges the unconscious and conscious by providing unexpected knowledge of unknown origins when none is consciously available, assesses potential of situations, and imparts understanding of how and when to carry out instinctual action (Jung, 1971/1976, 1948/1981a).

Field research was conducted through a qualitative, intuitive, phenomenological methodology. Twelve participants in recovery from alcoholism were asked through conversational interviews about their experience of intuition in sobriety. The participants claimed intuition initiated, sustained, and enhanced their sobriety. They were able to distinguish the intuitive function from the amplified state of need, obsessive thought, and angst. They reported synchronicities, dreams and intuitive influences were instrumental in the decision to stop drinking. In longer term recovery, the intuitive function was perceived when helping others, solving problems, learning self-care, and enhanced intuition was described as one of the biggest gifts of sobriety.

This research contributes to the field of psychotherapy by discovering the important role of the intuitive function in addiction recovery. Recognizing and helping patients cultivate intuition facilitates the apprehension of addictive behaviors. Working with unconscious functions such as intuition helps those considering sobriety, as well as those in sobriety, to establish a relationship with their unconscious other than one based on addictive patterns. Developing the intuitive function in recovery establishes a conscious relationship to the primary process beyond impulsivity and curbs instinctual impulsivity.

Scope of Study: This study investigates the potential for a diagnosis of Internet Addiction and it’s associated subtypes as a conditional diagnosis in future revisions of the DSM-5. This research collects, compiles, and analyzes the existing literature on Internet Addiction and each of its subtypes, as well as the multiple interrelated topics regarding the broad topic of addiction, the generalized topic of behavioral addictions, as well as specific representative behavioral addictions. This comprehensive analysis facilitates a deductive examination of the potential validity of Internet Addiction as a mental health disorder. This study also investigates the decision by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to fundamentally alter the formally proposed diagnosis of Internet Addiction and insert instead Internet Gaming Disorder as a conditional diagnosis in the first edition of the DSM-5.

Findings and Conclusions: Over 1,000 peer-reviewed academic articles and books were found on the various topics investigated, nearly 500 of which were cited in the present study. The findings of this study indicate sufficient research for the APA to accept the broader diagnosis of Internet Addiction with subtypes into a revised DSM-5. The study closes with three possible speculative conclusions as to why the APA made the decision to deny the Internet Addition diagnosis in favor of its own Internet Gaming Disorder diagnosis in the current DSM-5.

This phenomenological study used a qualitative, hermeneutic analysis to explore the lived experiences of the moments of psychological change in five women and one man recovering from alcoholism. Interviews with the participants were coded thematically and analyzed in relation to a psychic movement that initiated sobriety. The data were compared to the process of transformation in the myth of Inanna–Queen of heaven and earth as a metaphor for psychic movement. Jung’s concepts of matter, spirit, and the psychoid function of the archetype were explored through a Post-Jungian approach, which also incorporated current research in neuroscience. Based on the analysis, the results suggest the psychoid nature of the archetype to be a function of an organically anchored archetype/primordial image analogous to implicit, dormant neural ensembles/representations in the body. These underlying representations or images activate cognitive/spirit and emotional/matter processes, and energy charges ideas, emotions, and feelings, either separately or together. Images are then released, producing cognitive and/or emotional responses. The analysis revealed that ambiguous energy charges are responsible for less complete cognitive, emotional, or feeling images, observable in unfinished sentences, phrases, words, and pauses in narration. The analysis also discovered how spiritual material supports the suggestion that cognitive and emotional processes are present at the same time in a psychophysical process releasing images, which produce thoughts, emotions, and feelings. The findings also indicate that raising awareness of how these cognitive, emotional, and feeling images interchangeably play a role in recovery could be a therapeutically beneficial approach when working with recovering addicts.

This case study is about learning as it relates to addiction recovery within the Men's Ministry (a pseudonym) program at an urban, faith-based mission, hereafter referred to as WCM (an acronym). The program is free and long-term residential. Its purpose is to be a "life transformation ministry for troubled men whose lives are out of control as a result of drugs, alcohol or some other destructive behavior pattern."

The study examines the described experiences of 13 WCM residents from the perspectives of two researchers: Cranton and DiClemente. Cranton's work explains change through adult learning, which can be transformative. DiClemente's work describes steps of change of becoming addicted and of recovering from addiction.

At my request, the chaplain at WCM selected Men's Ministry residents willing to share their life experiences as part of this study. During three 90-minute interviews based on Seidman's interview model, 13 residents shared their experiences before WCM in the first interview, their experiences at WCM in the second interview, and reflections on the first two interviews in the third interview.

The research questions that guided the study were (a)-How did the subjects in this faith-based addiction recovery program describe their own learning? and (b)-What were the subjects' perceptions of changes they experienced while in this faith-based addiction recovery program?

Participants' descriptions resulted in four conclusions: Multiple formal activities affected each participant; informal learning occurred throughout the WCM facility; participants' descriptions of changes at WCM resulted in recognition of changes throughout their prior lives; there was no single description by participants of a change, or a motive for change, at WCM.

Implications for future research include conducting longitudinal studies of this program's graduates, conducting studies with different participants to compare to this study, analyzing subsets of the data obtained, determining the indicated key programmatic elements, conducting studies about nonfaith-based residential substance addiction recovery programs to compare to this study.

Implications for practice include seeking adult educator's advice about including adult learning principles in substance addiction recovery, using adult educators as instructors in substance addiction recovery, and co-ordinating all practice activities with research findings.

Mothering in a variety of healthcare settings is a significant process studied by nurse researchers. Mothering during recovery from a drug addiction is important to study because of its health and mental health consequences for women, their infants and children, as well as the impact on society especially the financial burden. The process of recovery from drug addiction for mothers has not been well studied. Findings from such a study can shed light on the important nursing role regarding interventions and prevention strategies to mitigate some of the health consequences. The purpose of this study was to explore the process of mothering for women recovering from a drug addiction. The conceptual framework of symbolic interaction and the Grounded Theory Methodology (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) were used to guide the study.

Data were collected through 10 semi-structured interviews of women residing in a rehabilitation residential facility for drug addiction who had at least one child under the age of 18. The results indicated that the process of mothering while in recovering from a drug addiction was non-linear. Phases emerged from data collected using the constant comparative analysis of transcripts, levels of coding, categorizing and conceptualizing. Three final phases emerged from the subcategories, which explained the process: mothering as influencing sobriety, anticipatory struggling and hopeful ideal mothering. Anticipatory Struggling identified the final substantive theory that emerged. The women in this study were committed to changing to claim or reclaim the role of motherhood. The participants were aware of the challenges and overwhelming responsibilities that were ahead as they recovered and they anticipated the struggles, fearing relapse or again losing custody of their children. However, they were hopeful about their future mothering role, albeit in an idealized way, as they began to make their re-entry into the community. The study's findings have important implications for nursing practice, education and for influencing health policy.

Self-forgiveness is an emotion focused coping mechanism that increases positive emotions and behaviors. Self-forgiveness has been found to be moderated by guilt and shame in support of Hall and Finchman’s theory on the emotional components of self-forgiveness. Men and women recovering from alcohol addiction have been found to struggle with shame and guilt, however, little is understood about this association. This quantitative correlational non-experimental research study investigated the relationship between self-forgiveness and risk of relapse in adults who were recovering from alcohol abuse, how shame and guilt moderated this relationship and how this relationship differed by gender. Anonymous surveys were conducted in two treatment centres and two Alcoholic Anonymous recovery meetings in the city of Calgary. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, The Heartland Forgiveness Scale, Alcohol Risk of Relapse Scale, and the Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale. Multiple regression and moderation analyses were conducted to test the study hypotheses. Self-forgiveness was found to have a non-significant relationship with risk of relapse (β = .040, p < .720) and the scores did not differ by gender [Male (β = –.061, p < .641), and Female (β = –.0.17, p < .937)]. Shame (F (3, 79) = .614, p = .608), and guilt (F (3, 79) = 7.244, p = .000) did not have a moderating effect on the relationship between self-forgiveness and the risk of relapse. When shame and guilt interacted with self-forgiveness in predicting risk of relapse, the results did not differ by gender [Male (F (4, 55) = 5.770, p = .001), and female (F (4, 18) = .580, p = .681)]. However, a result not hypothesized in the study was found among male participants that guilt was predictive of risk of relapse ( F (3, 56) = 7.595, p = .000). This study highlights the impact of maladaptive guilt that maintains the cycle of addiction. Clinicians can utilize this knowledge to employ strategies of eliminating maladaptive guilt in psychotherapy. Further research is needed to determine if these results could be replicated with other demographic groups to identify other plausible mechanisms between self-forgiveness at risk of relapse.

Using hermeneutic and heuristic methodologies, this thesis explores the possibility of a psychedelic Amazonian plant medicine known as ayahuasca to be used in the treatment of depression and addiction. Incorporating a depth psychology approach, this thesis explores the similarities and differences between Peruvian shamanism and Jungian depth psychology. The author draws on depth psychological theory in analyzing her experiences with ayahuasca, highlighting the role of psychotherapy in integrating her experiences as part of her process of individuation and healing trauma. The research points to a positive correlation between ayahuasca use and the treatment of mood disorders such as major depressive disorder and substance use disorders such as alcohol use disorder. The thesis examines the role of spirituality and experiences with the numinous in helping one to heal from mood disorders and substance dependency and find a greater sense of empowerment and meaning in life.