Ruxandra Rascanu
PhD, University of Bucharest
Personality traits as predisposing factors to addiction, or the appetite for drug. Drug addiction may be considered as a result of the intersection between product, drug and environmental factors, educational factors and those factors configuring the intimate structure of personality. Among environmental factors, the most accepted are social and economic deprivations: parent’s unemployment, poverty, limited material conditions, disorganized families by divorce or abandonment, single parent families. Living conditions in disorganized communities, excessive mobility from a community to an other, most of all though, 1-2 decades of accessibility to drugs and alcohol, group affiliation to drug users, family antecedents of alcoholism, painful traumatic events: separations, death of a close person, etc.
Renowned authors list among educational factors: excessively severe discipline in family or exaggerated tolerance, permissive attitude of parents versus drug consumption. Other factors are also considered: emotional deprivation, a severe family environment or a violent one, use of educational methods with oscillating notes and disagreements between parents. Most of the time those methods fail to offer a space of personal value and coherent normativity and family environment’s dominant note is the lack of communication or the deficit in communication between parents and children.
Family, by existent intrinsic dysfunctions and inadequate educational methods offered to the children, may represent a serious risk factor influencing the debut of drug consumption. However, not all the individuals confronted with these environmental and educational factors become addicted. This happens mostly due to the fact that psychologically, the factor mediating the way in which those conditions are both perceived and reflected is the global personality structure. It is well-known fact that there are persons more fragile in terms of personality structures, while others have features that protect and help them to deter drug consumption.
There are studies highlighting a correlation between behavior disorders including hyperactivity and later life drug consumption. In fact, starting with childhood, this fact draws attention towards a particular type of personality structure, more difficult, special, that, in the case of a lack of guidance, may turn into a disharmonic personality. Drug consumption in this particular case is a result of the impulsive behavior generated by this particular personality type.
Self image is also a factor playing an important role in the debut and maintenance of drug consumption. An unfavorable self image, either unstructured, characterized by lack of self-confidence and inferiority complex, may generate a rebellious attitude, or, on the contrary, an attitude of withdrawal and retractility, social isolation and excessive timidity.
Addiction experts accept the idea that rebellious attitude and drugs are on the same side of the barricade, since drug consumption itself is socially disapproved, more than that, it is incriminated and legally punished. At the other extreme, sometimes timidity does not offer the opportunity of normal relationship accomplishments, generating maximum of discomfort. If the person discovers that there are substances able to cause a state of wellbeing, spontaneity and lack of inhibition, the path towards the consumption decision may be extremely short.
Anxiety is an other personality trait considered predisposing factor to drug consumption. Anxiety, as a fear without object, is translated into the subject’s life trough unequal, out of scale reactions to events, inadequacy and elements of stress. There are cases when anxious persons may use depressant substances of central nervous systems (that induce a state of relaxation) in order to escape this state of acute and grave psychological suffering.
Children whom nothing was ever refused, who get everything they demand, unconditionally, risk to develop hedonistic personality structures, because they develop a view of life as a continuous path of pleasurable events and nothing that could drive them to pleasure must be missed. As a "positive attitude" towards everything generating and meaning pleasure, hedonism is becoming a risk factor for drug consumption.
An educational environment showing tolerance to drugs may lead to building a set of norms and values that accept drug consumption as a normal behavior. These "positive attitudes" towards drugs are predisposing for sure to drug addiction and dependency.
Personality, in its dynamics towards reaching maturity, follows a complicated and difficult path during some particular periods in life. Adolescence is a time characterized by multiple physiological and psychological transformations. At a certain point during this time the adolescents may become vulnerable, under multiple aspects. Adolescents are a risk population concerning drug consumption. Most of debuts take place especially during this time, the personality being immature, the system of values is not built yet, and temptation to try and experiment new things is still present.
Naturally, one may ask himself/herself whether these personality types specific to drug dependency enter effectively under the psychopathological umbrella or are just normal personalities, with a certain degree of psychological fragility.
Antoine and Maurice Porot (1999) state that drug users may be classified into the following categories: psychotics and pre-psychotics, psychopaths, immature personalities and personalities who adjusted themselves to the group pressure. The personality structure of a real drug addict is of pathological nature for the first two categories, drugs playing an important role in decompensation of these fragile personalities. Those belonging the last categories above mentioned are not pathological personalities; they are usually teenagers and immature youngsters having predisposing personality traits, who live in a high risk environment favorable to drug consumption.
Behaviour alterations induced by drug consumption in the personality structureDrug use leads very often to the so-called "deficiency syndrome". This is characterized by the following elements:
- deficit of activity: is especially characterized by the effort to get the drug, justifying its inertia by pseudo-philosophical and anti-social reasoning. It is frequently common in opiacea user;
- deficit in intellective-operational area: slow ideation, troubles of attention and memory;
- deficit of disposition and affectivity. It is rather interesting that only the drug remains invested with affectivity. This state reminds us of the affective indifference of hebephrenic and also favors the depressive states, especially during the time of un-habituation, fact that leads many times to relapses (re-appearance of addictive behavior, dependency).
Concerning especially opiacea consumption, there is the danger of installing a rapid and constant deficitary syndrome. In the case of hallucinogenic drugs, there is a risk of prolonged delusion syndromes, similar to schizophrenic pattern. In cannabis consumption, the syndrome of lack of motivation appears, while in the use of amphetamines paranoid delusional reactions are common. In the case of excessive dose usage, confusional or oneroid-confusional states are common.
In the case of prolonged use of drugs, we may notice an inhibition of psychological development, due to the fact that the drug-dependent person is "organizing" his/her own life around the drug obtaining process and stops being interested in other life experiences and his/her acquisitions are decreasing substantially. Implicitly, one may notice a delay of psychological development, and in case the dependency occurs at a younger age, the consequences are of psycho-somatic nature. Following the development of dependency state and while material means are decreasing, a grave deterioration of moral judgment takes place: theft, robbery, injurious talking, menacing, battering being all considered by the drug addict as normal life behavior.
Drug addiction emphasizes deviant behavior and the idea of incapacity, failure, by the feedback mechanism. If initially the drug managed to create the sensation of dealing with problems by ignoring them, after an active period of drug consumption, this appears as a necessity, even with specific phenomenon more and more acute, and the person begins to augment substance doses hoping he/she will manage to distance himself/herself from them.
After few cycles of this type: existence of X problem, drug consumption as an ignoring mechanism, the idea of incapacity of solving due to the lack of abilities, the feeling of inefficiency in personal life as a consequence of the life-style common to drug-addicts, self-confidence is heavily lowered, self-image is deteriorating, is even destructuring in the case it used to exist as a strong structure.
Considering all the above mentioned facts, we may notice that all the alterations produced by drug dependency at personality level are profound and visible and they can even affect the personality core when dependency has been installed for a while. This fact highly recommends the use of psychotherapy as a sine qua non intervention of restructuring and optimizing of personality and constructing a new lifestyle with elements of emotional and social balance.
Evaluation report for 2003Drug related criminal behavior dynamic, assessed between 2001-2003, has known a significant rise from 670 offences in 2001, to 1291 recorded in 2002 and to 1462 in 2003. In percentage, year 2003 is characterized by a rise of 13, 2% of the number of criminal offences versus 2002 and a rise of 118% versus 2001.
Regarding the environment where the criminal behavior has taken place, urban environment takes the first place (90.4%), confirming that urban communities favor drug distribution, especially big cites. There are though two districts in the rural environment where the number of criminal offences is bigger than the number recorded in the urban environment: Satu Mare (16 in rural environment versus 11 in urban environment), Sibiu (18 versus 17) and Suceava (15 versus 9).
Romania, criminal behavior is mainly expressed related to the possession of small drug quantities for private consumption and selling-buying operations specific to the small street traffic.
Following analysis of the dynamics of investigated persons by the age of participants’ criterion, has been noticed a constant tendency of decrease between 2001-2003:
- category of persons above 30 years old have is increasing in 2002 (36%), followed by a relative stabilisation in 2002 (33.5%);
- persons investigated, of age between 21 and 29 years old, is the main category (49,1% in 2001, 43,9% in 2002 and 46,3% in 2003);
- tendency of stabilization of young person’s age (18-20 years old) involved in committing this type of criminal offences is completed by its flattening tendency (20,7% in 2001, 13,7% in 2002 and 13,6% in 2003);
- percentage of minors legally responsible, investigated in similar causes, remains relatively constant in the last three years (6, 1% in 2001, 6% in 2002 and 6, 3% in 2003).
During 2001- 2003, offences related to traffic and use of drugs, considering sex criterion, have been done mostly by men (average percentage is 79.2%), women’s implication being active only during 2002 (24.4%).
Considering education level criterion, it has been noticed that among investigated persons, gymnasium graduates represent the category the most involved in the field of criminal behaviour related to drugs, while high school graduates hold a second position. The analysis provides an increase in the number of university graduates (5, 2% in 2001, 9% in 2002 and 8, 5% in 2003).
During the mentioned period, in the field of drug related criminal behaviour has been noticed a rather large implication of unemployed persons, the number of those persons reached in 2003 the top percentage of 64.8%. The fact that the largest part of this category is represented by young people (75.2% in 2001 and 66.8 in 2003) is even more concerning.
Regarding the ethnic element in drug related activities, people belonging to roma community are the most interested in this illegal activity, in terms of consistent amounts of money involved (in 2001: 68 roma community members investigated – 9.4%; in 2002: 112 – 7.8%; in 2003: 186 – 12.5%).
Regarding the way of charging the condemned minors, the importance of criminal offences convinced judges to apply penalties, mostly concerning the freedom-depriving ones. (6 in 2001, 18 in 2002 and 15 in 2003).
Cannabis is widely spread in Europe, especially among young people. There are studies showing that 46.2% of youngsters (14-15 years old) in European Union have tried cannabis and 28.9% have used cannabis during a period of their lives. More than 10% of young people have used cannabis during last year in France (19.8%), in Spain (15%), in Great Britain (13.4%), in Denmark (12.2%) and Netherlands (12.2%). The least affected countries are Austria, Greece, Luxemburg, Portugal and Sweden.
A particularity of drug use in Central and Eastern Europe is the socio-economic situation of these countries, the differentiate development and strengthening of the state of law. Regarding cannabis consumption, surveys conducted in schools show a prevalence of consumption around the age of 16, 16% on average, starting from 1% in Romania to 34% in Czech Republic. Even since the mid of last decade, the problem of opiacea use and especially heroin use have generated concerns in the majority of these countries. Even though the data provided by international agencies are rather scarce, a general tendency of stabilizing the drug consumption in Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovak Republic, Slovenia and possibly Bulgaria may be estimated, along with an increase in Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania (especially heroin consumption). Cocaine consumption is under the Western Europe level, but an increase can be noticed in Albania, Croatia, Lithuania and Poland. In Slovenia and Czech Republic the consumption has been stabilized, while in Hungary a decrease has been noticed. Recent data show that amphetamine type stimulants, especially Ecstasy, are now used in experimental and recreational use, under the name of "club drugs", with an increased rate of prevalence of consumption at the average age of 16, for example 6% in Lithuania and 4% in Czech Republic, Lithuania and Slovenia.
The current situation is alarming if we consider studies done by some nongovernmental organizations or other Romanian or foreign institutions (UNICEF, UNAIDS, OMS, etc.), that estimate a number of 34000-40000 drug users of injectable drugs in Bucharest only, and the assistance services (4 in Bucharest) are left, paradoxically, most of the time, without patients.
Due to a lack of unitary and coordinated actions by institutions in-charge, a distorted social representation regarding drug users was created. This lead to unjustifiable exclusion actions by society and a loss of confidence drug users experience towards these assistance services. At the same time, media – print press, televizion, have substantially contributed to creating a negative image of the consumer, described exclusively by criminal behavior attached to this pathological state or by morbid themes, responsible for high TV ratings.
Under these circumstances, civil society’s reaction that becomes more and more actively involved in the assistance of drug users is justifiable. There is worth mentioning especially the involvement of the persons directly affected, despite the financial and bureaucratic difficulties of developing private alternatives in this field. Therefore, in Oradea the "Trust" foundation has created a Day Centre for the assistance of drug users, while "Romanian Blue Cross" Association has developed two therapeutic communities for drug and alcohol users in Vurpar and Sura Mica, in Sibiu district.
Other important objectives in assuring quality services in the treatment of drug use is the professional training of specialists (psychiatrists, general practitioners, psychologists, medical nurses, social workers etc.) and the development of a curriculum for them.
Biographical NoteRuxandra Rascanu, PhD, Clinical Psychologist with more than 30 years experience, Professor of "Introduction in Psychoanalysis" course and "Psychology and psychopathology of addiction" course at Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences at University of Bucharest, teacher of Clinical psycho-diagnosis, Differential psychology, Projective techniques, Communication Psychology, involved in research projects in Studying Drug Addiction in Youth and Teenagers, participated at International Conferences on Drug Addiction.
Selective ReferencesRomanian Anti-Drug Association: “Methadone, between dream and reality”, Bucharest, 2002.
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Mitrofan, Iolanda, Vasile, Diana: “Family therapies”, Bucharest, SPER Printing House, Alma Mater Collection, 2001.
Potschka – Lang, Constantze: “Constellationes familiales: guerir le transgenerationel”, Le Souffle d’Or, 2001.
Prelipceanu, D., Voicu, V: “Abuse and dependency of psycho-active drugs”, Ed. Info-Medica, Bucharest, 2004.
Rascanu, Ruxandra: “Psychology and psychopathology in drug addiction”, Bucharest, “Ars Docendi” Printing House, 2002.
Rascanu, Ruxandra: “Alcohol and drugs: virtues and traps for young people”, University of Bucharest Printing House, Bucharest, 2004.