[Characteristics of psychopathology of tobacco dependence]

Overall 320 patients were examined for the clinical picture of tobacco-smoking. The whole clinical diversity of tobacco-smoking is reduced to the common system in which two independently existing variants of tobacco-smoking are distinguished: in the form of a tobacco-smoking habit and tobacco dependence. Tobacco dependence is viewed as a current psychopathological process having a localized and partial nature. A psychopathological delineation of tobacco dependence is provided. Three forms of tobacco dependence are described at the syndromal level. It is emphasized that tobacco dependence does not refer to toxicomania or narcomania in terms of its clinical manifestations, occupying an intermediate place in psychopathology, namely between mental health, one the one hand, and borderline neuropsychic disorders, on the other one.