The Systemic Understanding of Addiction in the Family

Abstract

Addiction is a multidimensional disease. A person who takes psychoactive substances experiences numerous intrapsychic difficulties which motivate him/her to seek drug therapy. It must be remembered, however, that intra-family relations play an important role in the formation of addiction. Based on case study of the patients undergoing treatment at the Catholic Centre “Home of Hope” in Bytom it is possible to define a specific model of an addict’s family. The therapy of families is an attempt to analyze this “pathological model”, but at the same time it opens a new perspective, a new narration of the family’s functioning.