[Dependence disorders in psychopathology]

Research concerning the psychopathological aspects of dependence implicates a wide range of behaviors reassembled under the term of "dependence behaviors": sexual, medical, alcoholic and tobacco dependencies. Speech samples of dependent subjects show that encountering the object of dependence (product, element, ...) introduces a particular form of organized psychological processes. According to several authors, psychopathological dependence can be attributed to: early personality development; failures in the separation-individuation processes; disorders in mother-infant interactions; and a deficit in the psychological functioning of the subjects. For psychopathology, the dependence cannot be reduced to physiological dependence on the product but is understood rather in terms of a complex process indicative of either specific or non-specific suffering which is addressed by abused substance that represents a solution--the effects of which constitute the addictive process. Understanding this process requires an analysis of the psychopathological dependence from a triple meta-psychological viewpoint (topographical, dynamic, economic). Such analysis allows for a psychoanalytical theoretical interpretation of dependence based on three models: pleasure, narcissism and stress reduction. At the same time, the analysis extends the examination of psychopathological dependence towards issues concerning the body. Such body issues are critically placed between the biological and the psychological processes.