Abstract
M.A. (Clinical Psychology)
The present study investigates a modus operandi for doing therapy with the sedative-hypnotic/opiate drug abuser with borderline or narcissistic tendencies. Definitions of the
latter are based on the work by Kernberg and Kohut respectively.
Unstable patterns of attachment in infancy and childhood are thought to contribute to a sense of lack or deficit in the drug abuser. This lack or insufricient structuralisation is associated with compulsive dependency on an external obj ect , in this case, the sedative-hypnotic or opiate drug.
In order to wean the drug abuser off his drug, it is proposed that, initially, the therapist needs to take over the function of the drug which is to act as a sUbstitute for psychic structure. In other words, the therapist becomes a self-object for the drug abuser until such time as he is sUfficiently structuralised and relatively tree ot the compulsion to drug. The nature of the selt-object' transference and the therapist's role therein are explored in this thesis.