Psychodynamics of Drug Use Discussed at Clinic

              Psychodynamics of Drug Use Discussed at Clinic
The psychodynamics of drug use were
grouped together as the major subject of
a discussion this week at the Clinical
Pastoral Training Program in Schumpert
Hospital.
Dr. Paul Ware, a Shreveport psychia-trist
in private practice, said that the
unconscious motivation behind an indi-vidual's
drug abuse can be placed in
three categories: Social or developmen-tal
drug use; communicative drug use or
abuse; and pathological drug abuse.
Ware, as a doctor of psychiatry and
neurology, works with children, adoles-cents
and college students. He is a
member of the teaching staff at the
Louisiana State U n i v e r s i t y Medical
School in Shreveport, an assistant
professor and training analyst on the
faculty of Tulane Medical School, and a
psychiatric consultant for the Methodist
Children's Home in Ruston.
He defined social or developmental
drug use as the use of drugs as a part of
adolescent development in a certain
society. Adolescents who are depressed
or des p o n d e n t are more likely to
experiment with marijuana than others,
he said. Those that actually feel
inadequate are prone to go on to
something stronger, at least to the
hallucinogens.
As to communicative drug use, Ware
explained that drugs often serve as a
vehicle for the communication of a
conflict within an individual, a conflict
which is most often the result of a
problem within the family.
"Many teenagers make their use of
drugs obvious within their home, but it is
amazing how many parents do not
respond," he said.
Individuals to whom drugs have
become a way of life and who are truly
addicted to them were defined as
pathological abusers. '
Ware stated that one characteristic of
this group is the inability to perceive or
e x p e r i e n c e pleasure from things in
general life.
"I am convinced that they have a
defect in their pleasure mechanism, and
that many of them really don't receive
pleasure from normal things," he said.
Ware also c o m m e n t e d on some
general tendencies he has noticed in
young people.
"Many young people tend to minimize
intimacy," he said. "They tend to
minimize looking at a person's total
behavior."
"Young people can be together and
yet remain very separate. Early adoles-cents
are generally very afraid to deal
with deep feelings."
He said that drugs offer pleasure,
provide acceptance with peers and allow
people to refrain from dealing with each
other on a deep level.
Ware expressed a negative attitude
toward the legalization of marijuana.
"I'm against legalization," he said.
"We still don't know a lot about drugs. If
we knew a long time ago what we now
know about tobacco and alcohol, they
probably would never have been legal-ized."