[Understanding a new conception of addiction in current clinical practices]

This paper described the historical process that the conception of "addiction" and "dependence" have been formed and changed. Before, the "addiction" was a prejudiced word used when people contempt an individual with compulsive drinking or taking psychoactive drugs, and this word implied moralistic and ethical faults of the individual. After that, this word describing an individual without control of drinking was taken place by the "dependence." This is the neutral and medical conception, defined by presence of tolerance and withdrawal symptoms, although it was based on the "alcoholism." which originated in the citizen movement in 1930s in U.S. Recently some professionals have preferred to use the "addiction" when describing an individual losing control of deviated, impulsive, and repetitive behavior including pathological gambling and compulsive buying. These behaviors have been discriminated form substance dependence, while clinically applied to analogical treatment to substance dependence. However, the DSM-5 draft which the American Psychiatric Association has published as a draft of new diagnostic criteria for mental disorders has classified both of substance dependence and addictive behavior into the same category, and has removed the word "dependence" in the description. In this paper, we looked back on historical conflicts between the two words of "dependence" and "addiction," and discussed the clinical meanings and problems of these words.