Bshs 455 - Conceptualization Addiction Paper

Nasser Miranda

University of Phoenix

Conceptualizing Addiction Paper

BSHS455

April 2016

Addiction is the basic case where a person depends on substances.  In recent times, some behaviors have been identified as potentially addictive such as sex, gambling, extreme shopping, internet use and extreme online gaming.   There are certain trends that ensure some kind of consensus that people can be addicted to something without a substance present in their organism.  Theoretical models can therefore be characterized as either moral or medical model.  Each model has its own personal characteristics, and these can help the researcher better understand the different symptoms of addiction.  

One of the traditional models is the moral model.  This model has been perceived addiction as a non scientific model.  This model blames the addict and then tries to find a way to bring the patient to recovery.  In addition, people unreservedly select their behavior using their own rational decision making process.   The selected choice will then be directed to the maximization of pleasure and will hence be controlled through the perception of the potential punishment that will result from the act of the abuse.   The individuals who are advancing research on this model are not agreeing on the fact that different forces have influence on this addictive behavior but argue that some people who gamble greatly or use drugs excessively have something wrong morally.   Viewing addicts as a moral flaw led alcoholics in the past to be grouped with others that have demonstrated moral failings.  

The medical model is a term coined by psychiatric R.D. Laing in his book “The Politics of the Family and Other Essays (1971), now it is a set of procedures in which all doctors are trained.   This model treats mental disorders or addictions in the same way as a broken leg; because they think there is always a physical cause to every addiction.  Different supporters of this model considered symptoms to be external signs of a inner physical disorder that can be grouped in a syndrome and this can eventually lead them to the appropriate treatment.  This model assumes a biological approach to psychopathology.  Researchers believe they should approach addiction using genetics, neurotransmitters, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy.   These researchers argue that mental disorders like addiction are related in some way to the physical structure of the brain.