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Under this somewhat misleading title is presented an excellent review of the literature on the psychology of drug addiction. The author finds ample confirmation
of the early, oral regressive features of addicts stressed by many workers, especially the feeling of hunger satiation (called orgastic not in the genital sense but in the baby-at-the-breast sense), and of the use of addiction to handle intense aggressive impulses turned against the self. Of special interest is the addict's poor and incomplete separation from the mother, producing tenuous identities, infantile qualities, insatiable narcissistic needs, and the striving for the symbiotic relationship that make treatment so difficult. What the addict must prove over and over to himself is that he has complete mastery over his external source of primal love supply, drug = mother. An interesting observation confirming this is that the sight of the drug or injection equipment may produce mild withdrawal symptoms. These could sometimes be seen spontaneously when a patient in therapy spoke of his need to be at one with his mother and have all needs granted without even asking.