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In the psychopathology of the addictive process the most malignant form is addiction to narcotics. Object relationships are on an archaic level and the addict is unable to experience love and gratification through the usual channels of incorporation and introjection. Tension and depression become unbearable and in the process of regression the ego is overwhelmed by the threat of disintegration. Like the neonate, the addict has no ability to bind tension. Because of the inability to tolerate delay, he seeks an emergency measure which bypasses the oral route of incorporation in favor of a more primitive one, the intravenous channel.
He injects a tension-relieving opiate which immediately restores the integrity of the ego. But what is restored is merely the relatively fixated archaic infantile ego by which the addict survives from one drug feeding to another, with indolence, semistupor, or sleep between feeding. The vicious cycle repeats itself whenever the drug hunger appears. With the rapid repair of the distintegrating infantile ego, perception is diminished or obliterated and the process of denial is served. The question is raised: Does the injection symbolically represent an attempt to re-establish a total fusion with the mother as well as a union with her breast?