A Holistic Approach to Understanding Addiction and Mental Health

Maia Szalavitz is an American reporter and author who has focused much of her work on the topic of addiction. She is the co-author of Born for Love and The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, both with Dr. Bruce D. Perry. Her latest book is Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction  

In this paradigm-shifting interview, Maia Szalavitz explains that addiction is a learning disorder, a developmental disorder, which is a different way of thinking of addiction than it being a disease or a moral failing.

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In This Interview, Maia Szalavitz and I Discuss…

• Her book,  Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction
• That your brain becomes what it does – that the more you repeat an activity, the easier it becomes
• How addiction is a developmental disorder and how learning is critical to addiction
• The problems with discussion about addiction as a disease
• Arguing that addiction is a disease and then treating it like a moral failing
• Addiction resets your priorities and causes one to make different decisions
• Addiction = compulsive behavior that continues despite negative consequences
• How illogical it is then to try and address addiction by focusing on implementing additional negative consequences
• The complexity of addiction, genes + culture + timing
• The developmental history that gets you to addiction
• How the drug isn’t the problem and our efforts to get rid of it isn’t a helpful solution
• Addiction as a learning disorder that is characterized by a resistance to punishment
• The problem with “rock bottom” is it’s not helpful scientifically, and it implies a moral component of having to reach a point of extreme degradation before you can stop.
• What the motivation is that turns people to recovery
• How addicts keep using because they can’t see how they can survive any other way
• Recovery begins when you start to see that there are other options
• People with addiction are living at a point of learned helplessness
• The role of hope and other ways of managing their life
• Addiction as a coping mechanism
• The pleasures of the hunt vs the pleasures of the feast
• Wanting vs Liking
• Different motivational states
• Addiction as escalating wanting
• Stimulants and chasing that satisfaction
• The effectiveness and usefulness of 12 Step Programs
• The role of medicine in a developmental disorder
• Looking at addicts as students who need to learn better coping skills rather than sinners who need to be forced to repent.

Maia Szalavitz Links:

maiasz.com

Twitter 

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