- Title Pages
- Series Foreword
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- I Foundational Questions
- 1 Contested Boundaries: Psychiatry, Disease, and Diagnosis
- 2 Moot Questions in Psychiatric Ethics
- 3 The Ethics of Psychotherapy
- 4 Character Virtues in Psychiatric Practice
- II Capacity, Coercion, and Consent
- 5 Psychiatric Advance Directives and the Treatment of Committed Patients
- 6 Denying Autonomy in Order to Create It: The Paradox of Forcing Treatment upon Addicts
- 7 End-Stage Anorexia: Criteria for Competence to Refuse Treatment
- 8 “Personality Disorder” and Capacity to Make Treatment Decisions
- III Violence, Trauma, and Treatment
- 9 Sanctity of Human Life in War: Ethics and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
- 10 The Experience of Violent Injury for Young African American Men: The Meaning of Being a “Sucker”
- 11 The Psychological Impact of Rape Victims’ Experiences with the Legal, Medical, and Mental Health Systems
- IV Addiction
- 12 Addiction as Accomplishment: The Discursive Construction of Disease
- 13 The Ethics of Addiction
- 14 Myths about the Treatment of Addiction
- 15 Ethical Considerations in Caring for People Living with Addictions
- V Mental Illness and the Courts
- 16 Confidentiality and the Prediction of Dangerousness in Psychiatry
- 17 Madness versus Badness: The Ethical Tension between the Recovery Movement and Forensic Psychiatry
- 18 Ethical Considerations of Multiple Roles in Forensic Services
- 19 Watch Your Language: A Review of the Use of Stigmatizing Language by Canadian Judges
- VI Therapeutic Boundaries
- 20 Boundary Violation Ethics: Some Conceptual Clarifications
- 21 The Price of a Gift: An Approach to Receiving Gifts from Patients in Psychiatric Practice
- 22 How Certain Boundaries and Ethics Diminish Therapeutic Effectiveness
- 23 Boundary Issues in Social Work: Managing Dual Relationships
- 24 Patient-Targeted Googling: The Ethics of Searching Online for Patient Information
- 25 Professional Boundaries in the Era of the Internet
- Contributors
- Permissions and Credits
- Index
Myths about the Treatment of Addiction
Myths about the Treatment of Addiction
- Chapter:
- (p.211) 14 Myths about the Treatment of Addiction
- Source:
- Applied Ethics in Mental Health Care
- Author(s):
Charles P. O’Brien
A. Thomas McLellan
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
The authors argue that addictions are similar to other chronic disorders such as arthritis, hypertension, asthma, and diabetes. Addicting drugs produce changes in brain pathways that endure long after the person stops taking them. Further, the associated medical, social, and occupational difficulties that usually develop during the course of addiction do not disappear when the patient is detoxified. These protracted brain changes and the associated personal and social difficulties put the former addict at great risk of relapse. Treatments for addiction, therefore, should be regarded as being long term, and a “cure” is unlikely from a single course of treatment.
Keywords: Addiction, Naltrexone, Chronic Disease
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- Title Pages
- Series Foreword
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- I Foundational Questions
- 1 Contested Boundaries: Psychiatry, Disease, and Diagnosis
- 2 Moot Questions in Psychiatric Ethics
- 3 The Ethics of Psychotherapy
- 4 Character Virtues in Psychiatric Practice
- II Capacity, Coercion, and Consent
- 5 Psychiatric Advance Directives and the Treatment of Committed Patients
- 6 Denying Autonomy in Order to Create It: The Paradox of Forcing Treatment upon Addicts
- 7 End-Stage Anorexia: Criteria for Competence to Refuse Treatment
- 8 “Personality Disorder” and Capacity to Make Treatment Decisions
- III Violence, Trauma, and Treatment
- 9 Sanctity of Human Life in War: Ethics and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
- 10 The Experience of Violent Injury for Young African American Men: The Meaning of Being a “Sucker”
- 11 The Psychological Impact of Rape Victims’ Experiences with the Legal, Medical, and Mental Health Systems
- IV Addiction
- 12 Addiction as Accomplishment: The Discursive Construction of Disease
- 13 The Ethics of Addiction
- 14 Myths about the Treatment of Addiction
- 15 Ethical Considerations in Caring for People Living with Addictions
- V Mental Illness and the Courts
- 16 Confidentiality and the Prediction of Dangerousness in Psychiatry
- 17 Madness versus Badness: The Ethical Tension between the Recovery Movement and Forensic Psychiatry
- 18 Ethical Considerations of Multiple Roles in Forensic Services
- 19 Watch Your Language: A Review of the Use of Stigmatizing Language by Canadian Judges
- VI Therapeutic Boundaries
- 20 Boundary Violation Ethics: Some Conceptual Clarifications
- 21 The Price of a Gift: An Approach to Receiving Gifts from Patients in Psychiatric Practice
- 22 How Certain Boundaries and Ethics Diminish Therapeutic Effectiveness
- 23 Boundary Issues in Social Work: Managing Dual Relationships
- 24 Patient-Targeted Googling: The Ethics of Searching Online for Patient Information
- 25 Professional Boundaries in the Era of the Internet
- Contributors
- Permissions and Credits
- Index
