Personality core dynamics and drug preference.

The aim of this study is to investigate the possible link between Shoham's personality-core theory [1] and addiction to hard drugs. Basing ourselves on Kleinean premises, that the oral stage is critical in the formation of behavioural patterns, which are influential throughout life, we hypothesize that in the oral stage two opposing vectors, 'separation' and 'participation' are initiated. By 'participation' we refer to the identification of ego with an external object or symbol, and continuous tendency to lose the personal identity by fusion with this object or symbol. 'Separation' is the opposite vector and expresses ego's tendency to incorporate the external object or symbol. These vectors form two multidimensional personality axes, on which the different personality types and behavioral patterns can be anchored. This study aims at investigating the connection between these two vectors and drug addiction. We view drug addiction as a functional behaviour pattern, which brings the individual to a state of internal balance. Shoham's personality theory hypothesizes the derivation of behavioural patterns of different personality 'types', according to the strength of the two vector - the 'separant' and 'participant' types. It is hypothesized that the drug use and the experience gained by using the specific drug by different personality types will vary according to the prominence of the core personality vector. The potency of these vectors is related to an early oral (participant) or a later oral (separant) fixation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Polar types of reported drug involvement among Israeli youth.

The predisposing factors lined to drug involvement may be different for various types of youth, although the outcome is the same. In this sense a bimodal curve of drug involvement would indicate two types of highly involved youth: on the one hand, those from high social status families where low parental control implies a tendency to seek involvement with their peers and solve their personal adjustment problems within the peer group. On the other hand, those from the lower social strata for whom low parental control also implies association with outside peer groups as an alternative to shaky and diffuse families and lack of involvement in school life. This study on the cannabis involvement of 776 boys and girls (aged 14-18), drawn from eight schools, is an attempt to identify and describe these polar types of drug-involved youth in more detail.

Differential patterns of drug involvement among Israeli youth.

The present study tries to link some demographic, social, psycholoogical and attitudinal variables of drug abuse. The findings were centred around the readiness of secondary school youth in Israel to be involved in drugs and their active searching for drug involvement. A dependent variable based on five indices of drug involvement was constructed. It was then related to parental control, peer involvement in drugs, sex differentiation and membership in youth movements. A bi-modal high involvement curve was found, the first mode consisting of youth of low socio-economic strata who are drop-outs, who associate with outside peer groups as an alternative to their shaky and diffused families and lack of involvement in school life. The other mode consists of youth with a higher socio-economic background who are involved with drugs due to their desire for new hedonistic and emotional experiences. Their openness to experiment with drugs is a corollary to their involvement within a peer group which condones and legitimizes narcotics as well as any experiences which irrespective of their source, provide "a good high". There is a sub-group within this group which would be involved with drugs as a partial escape from personal problems.

The Tantalus Ration--a scaffolding for some personality-core vectors.

The two opposing vectors which are the core of our personality theory are "participation" and "separation." By participation we mean one's identification of his ego with a person(s), an object, or a symbolic construct outside himself, and his striving to lose his separate identity by fusion with this other object or symbol. Separation, of course, is the opposite vector. We use these opposing vectors of unification--fusion nad separation--isolation as the main axis of our theory in conjunction with three major developmental phages. The first is the process of birth. The second is the crystallization of an individual ego by the molding of the "ego boundary." The third phase of separation is a corollary of socialization when one reaches one's "ego identity" (12). The strain to overcome the separating and dividing pressures never leaves the human individual. The striving to partake in a pantheistic whole is ever present and it takes many forms; if one avenue towards its realization is blocked, it surges out from another channel. An illustrative case is the achievement motive which is a participation surrogate. Actual participation is unattainable by definition. The objective impossibility of participation is augmented by the countering separating vectors, both instinctual and interactive. At any given moment of our lives there would be a disjuncture, a gap between our desires for participation and our subjectively defined distance from our participatory aims. We have denoted this gap the Tantalus Ratio which is the relationship between the longed for participatory goal and the distance from it as perceived by ego. The Tantalus Ratio is dependent on, interalia, the strength of the participatory vectors, as determined by the age distances from the developmental stages of birth, ego boundary, and ego identity.