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The Young Addict and His Family

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

C. M. Rosenberg*
Affiliation:
Boston City Hospital, Boston, Mass. 02118; and Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Extract

The available evidence suggests that adolescent drug addicts are likely to have an underlying personality disorder, to come from broken homes, and to have parents who are alcoholic, antisocial or mentally ill (Nylander, 1964; Chein, 1965; Rosenberg, 1969a and b). Assuming that a background of family instability is related to deviant behaviour—including the abuse of drugs—it seems probable that some of the siblings of young addicts, who grew up in similar circumstances, would also become the subjects of psychiatric disorder.

Type
Abstract
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1971 

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References

Chein, I. (1965). ‘The use of narcotics as a personal and social problem.’ In Narcotics (Wilner, D. M. and Kassebaum, G. G., eds.). New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Nylander, I. (1964). ‘ “Thinner” addiction in Sweden.’ In Drug Addiction in Youth (Harms, E., ed.). Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, C. M. (1969a). ‘Young drug addicts: background and personality.’ Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 148, 6573.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosenberg, C. M. (1969b). ‘Determinants of psychiatric illness in young people.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 907–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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