Chapter 3: Compulsiveness and Conflict: The Distinction Between Description and Explanation in the Treatment of Addictive Behavior

In the face of clinical reality all the simple answers to a difficult problem such as addictive behavior and its underlying dynamics wither away: “what is simple and unified is not true, can hardly be that. Only what is composite can perhaps be assumed to be that” (Lagerkvist, 1966, p. 230).1 There is no such thing as “alcoholism is a disease”, in the meaning of a unitary entity with clear and singular cause, course, and treatment (Fingarette, 1988). There is no such thing as an “addictive personality” with clear and common dynamics and one preferable treatment approach