Therapy of the Substance Abuse Syndromes

By Jay Richards and Henry Jay Richards Ph.D.

Provides improved understanding of the connection between substance abuse and mental illness. The book offers the clinician a system for describing dual diagnosis problems, and provides alternative ways of approaching therapy with these patients, who have often been repeated treatment failures.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0876685394
• ISBN13: 9780876685396
• Release Date: July 1977
• Publisher: Jason Aronson
• Length: 478 Pages
• Weight: 1.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Review from Journal Addictions

Text from the professional journal, Addictions, No. 7, 1995, p. 994-995.Therapy of the Substance Abuse Syndromes HENRY JAY RICHARDS New Jersey, Jason Aronson, Inc., 1993, 478 pp.This book is an impressive and interesting monograph on the subject of substance abuse. The book provides the reader with a systematic and comprehensive approach to substance abuse treatment. In more than 450 pages it combines both theoretic demands and clinical relevance. The models and methods presented have been developed specifically to address treatment planning for patients, who have been recurrent treatment failures in both psychotherapy and addiction treatment programmes, so it is of particular use for those who work in dual diagnosis programmes as well as therapists in psychiatric or addiction facilities.In discussing theoretical implications in close connection with and relation to clinical programmes, Richards develops his own framework that is also useful and interesting for readers that do not share all of his ideas. From my own point of view this is a big advantage of this work. Richards describes the process of addiction as a movement to a cycle of three primitive states of self-experience: (1) a position typified by egoism and assertiveness (the inflated-grandiose position); (2) a position typified by depression and helplessness (the depleted-depressed position); and (3) a position typified by isolation, fantasy an self-absorption (the detached-schizoid position). Movement in this cycle is given by failures in self-regulation.With respect to his goal of organizing and planning several specialized programmes including substance abuse services, Richards presents a comprehensive system for assessment and treatment planning based on a dual diagnosis paradigm. The system consists of three interrelated concept sets: drug categories, symptom complexes and biopsychosocial functions of addiction.All in all this is a substantial contribution to treatment research and the discussion of special needs for patients with severe mental illness and addiction. It can also be recommended to European and other non-American readers, although it is written from a background of special experiences in the United States of America.Michael M. Krausz University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany