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Life Events and Addiction: a critical review
Author(s) -
O'DOHERTY FIONA,
DAVIES JOHN B.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
british journal of addiction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.424
H-Index - 193
eISSN - 1360-0443
pISSN - 0952-0481
DOI - 10.1111/j.1360-0443.1987.tb01451.x
Subject(s) - addiction , meaning (existential) , psychology , recall , process (computing) , de facto , epistemology , computer science , cognitive psychology , psychotherapist , psychiatry , political science , philosophy , operating system , law
Summary A number of research studies dealing with the relationship between life events' and the course of the addiction process are reviewed. It is concluded that there are problems involved in drawing unambiguous inferences from these researches. There is an absence of strong theoretical development which makes it difficult to see where the train of research is leading; consequently any association between the main variables can, at present, be viewed as ex post facto support for some version of a life events theory’. In addition, there are methodological problems concerning retrospective recall, the ‘search after meaning’ and the treatment of events as independent separate entities. It is suggested that advances will be made by way of approaches which take into account the dynamic and structural aspects of life courses' and the addiction process, and which pursue a more rigorous line of theoretical development and refinement.