Dislocation Theory and the Globalization of

Addiction

Today’s Agenda:

•House Keeping• Lecture / Movie

The Dislocation Theory of Addiction:

Setting the Tone

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Dislocation TheoryBruce Alexander

Professor Emeritus of Psychology at SFU

Addictions result from failure to achieve the level of social acceptance, competence, self-confidence and personal autonomy required of individuals in the society in which they live.

Background• Addiction is an overwhelming involvement with any

pursuit what so ever (including, but not limited to, drugs or alcohol) that is harmful to the addicted person, to society or both.

• We are still crying out for an explanation for addiction - and there yet remains no consensus.

• Our currents theories have not impacted the addiction problem... Thus the globalization of addiction “continues”

Psychosocial Integration

• We are disconnected from from inward and outward identity

• This lack of psychosocial integration is

•DISLOCATION

Dislocation

• Also know as a “soul wound”

• Poverty of Spirit

Psychosocial Integration

• Interdependence

• Sense of Identity

• Oneness with nature

• Connection to the “divine” / “spirit”

• Wholeness

• Worldly Soul

The Free Market... or Marketing our Doom?

Psychosocial Integration

• In the past, psychosocial integration was achieved from within the community, giving life to an individuated self and sense of freedom, but a “community self” as well.

• For example, at one time we had nuclear families, connection to dead ancestors, connection to extended family, to villages of families.

• These subgroups all grew from relatively stable and internally consistent traditions

• Today, our communities consist of “institutions”

Dislocation

•

•Addiction

Dislocation can endure for a time, but prolonged dislocation eventually leads to despair, shame, emotional anguish, boredom, bewilderment, it often precipitates suicide and of course is responsible for...

Dislocation• Dislocation is not eradicated through food,

shelter, nor through the attainment of wealth.

• But instead through a spiritual community to which one belongs.

• Dislocation can have many causes:

1. Natural disasters (destroys whole communities)

2. Wars

3. Child abuse

4. Ostracization

5. Destroying economic basis for a community

6. Globalizing Free market society “hyper-capitalism”

Globalizing free-market society undermines psychosocial

integration • Free market society: market where there is

no economic intervention by the government

• In free market economies, for example, people are expected to move to where jobs can be found, and to adjust their work lives and cultural tastes to the demands of a global market.

• People who cannot achieve psychosocial integration develop “substitute” lifestyles.

• Substitute lifestyles entail excessive habits including—but not restricted to drug use, and social relationships that are not sufficiently close, stable, or culturally acceptable.

• People who can find no better way of achieving psychosocial integration cling to their substitute lifestyles with a tenacity that is properly called “addiction”.

Free Market Some History

Globalising (cont.)• Although any person in any society can become dislocated,

modern western societies dislocate all their members to a greater or lesser degree because all members must participate in “free markets”.

• One in which controls labor, land, money and consumer goods.

• Thus we take the role of individual economic actors, unencumbered by family and friendship obligations, clan loyalties, community responsibilities, charitable feelings, the values or their religion, ethnic group, or nation.

You Were Born into Bondage!

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Free Market Society: How Far does the Rabbit Hole

Go? • Established “free” market

societies require the continuing presence of powerful control systems.

• Carefully engineered management, advertising, taxation, and mass media techniques keep people buying, selling,working, borrowing, lending, and consuming at optimal rates.

Rabbit Hole (cont.)

• This deliberately undermines the countervailing influences of new social structures that spontaneously arise in modern families, offices, factories, etc.

• Thus, opportunities to reestablish new forms of psychosocial integration are suppressed.

Addiction is Adaptive• People react to psychosocial disintegration because is it

adaptive.

• They attempt to at least have “some kind of life”

• Adaptation doesn’t mean desirable - it becomes a “lesser evil”... Buffering...

• Persons against “unbearable feelings” of dislocation

• Fragmentation of identity

• Acculturation / Assimilation Stress

Dislocation Theory

Dislocation Theory: Insufficient to Cause

Addiction• But a move in the right

direction

• Flatly contradicts conventional wisdom

• Worn out theories - time for paradigm shift

• Paradigm shifts occur when former theories don’t resolve old questions.. We must then begin to move onto new ones

Dislocation Theory: Boundaries

• Does not address why one person becomes addicted to one substance and not another

• Cannot account for why one dislocated person overcomes there handicaps while another does not

• But those who do become addicted in our free market society are only slightly different than each other

Dislocation Theory & Combatting Addiction:Where Do We Begin?

• Own the fact that current theories and etiological models of addiction are outdated

• Open political discussion...

• A realistic discussion must recognize that addiction is mass-produced in a free market society, and that, therefore, society as well as individuals must change.

• Rather than endlessly competing for funds by overstating their own achievements, those who support each of the four pillars (i.e., prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and policing) should apprise society of the limited extent of their accomplishments, thereby showing that even the four pillars together cannot save the day.

Opening the Door

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Where do we begin (cont.)

• People need to belong within their society, not just trade in its markets.

• Honest labour markets / laws

• Abolishment of labor exploitation

• Thus impose fair labor standards on a global level and prevent transnational corporations from inducing local governments to rescind local labor, health, safety, and environmental protections.

Social Change• Challenge futile policing practices

• Allocation and spends funds more appropriately

• Stop cuts in housing / Welfare / EI

• Teach and education and our youth to care for one another at deeper level

• Invest in social housing

• Public services need to be more nurturing

• Place full-time employment at the top of policy agendas