The Phenomenological Elements of Addiction: A Heideggerian Perspective

Abstract

Physician and therapist Drew Pinsky describes addiction as the ultimate “epidemic of our age.” Yet, despite advances in medical treatment, behavioristic models have yielded only mixed results in illuminating the roots and origins of this pervasive human affliction. Could phenomenology, by casting another spotlight on what it means to be human, offer an alternative approach for addressing the problem of addiction? In this essay, I will answer this question affirmatively. Specifically, I will apply the principles of Martin Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology to uncover the origins and roots of addiction, and thereby uncover the key elements that both spawn and perpetuate the self’s propensity to become addicted. Specifically, I will point to transformations in the worldly nexus of what is proximal and “handy” to the self, along with its everyday tendency toward concealment, deception, and dissimulation, to uncover the dynamics of the individual’s downward spiral (Absturz) into addiction.