Adolescent opiate addiction: A case study

Conclusions

• 1. Opiate addiction among adolescents extends out of a long history of serious difficulties in living.

• 2. It is often feasible after a few months of a therapeutic investigative relationship:

• 3. A major difficulty in the treatment of opiate addiction among adolescents, that is, in assisting these youths to live without opiates through lessened needs for heroin and for the associated pattern of living as a drug addict in our culture, is the fact that opiate addiction is so valuable and efficacious for them in their attempts to cope with their difficulties and symptomatology. Despite this, the authors do not believe that psychiatric treatment, including psychotherapy and structured environmental situations, for these youths is fruitless. The writers plan to discuss some of their experiences and hypotheses concerning the treatment of adolescent opiate addicts in a later report.

• (a) To clarify the types of functional changes in living which positively motivate the adolescent to deepen his involvement with opiate drugs;

• (b) To formulate cogent and/or plausible hypotheses about the integration of opiate drug use within a particular adolescent addict's personality structure and interpersonal experience.