PSYCHOANALYTIC PRINCIPLES IN ADDICTION TREATMENT

Date: Wednesday, October 15th 2025: 7:00pm-8:30pm
Credits: 1.5 CE
Speaker: Chris Cather, MD

Meeting is both on Zoom & in-person at:
The Center for Integrative Counseling & Psychology
4305 MacArthur Ave.
Dallas, TX 75209

Sponsored by: Lighthouse Recovery Center, Richardson, TX

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1. Summarize Freuds clinical (and personal) experiences with cocaine.

2. Describe how these experiences informed his psychanalytic understanding of addiction.

3. Review the evolution of psychoanalytic conceptions of addiction with specific attention to Krystal, Khantzian and Wurmser

4. Understand other conceptualizations of addiction with emphasis on compulsions (Dodes) and attachment (Flores) dynamics

PRESENTER BIOGRAPHY:

Dr. Cather is psychiatrist with board certifications in Adult as well as Addiction Psychiatry. He is a psychoanalyst through the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center.

REFERENCES:

Freud, S. (1884) Letter from Sigmund Freud to Martha Bernays, April 21, 1884. Letters of Sigmund Freud 1873-1939 51:107-109

Freud, S. (1897) Letter from Freud to Fliess, December 22, 1897. The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1904 42: 287-280

Wurmser, L (1974) Psychoanalytic Considerations of the Etiology of Compulsive Drug Use. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Assocation 22:820-843

Khantzian, D.J. (1978) The Ego, the Self and Opiate Addiction: Theoretical and Treatment Considerations. International Review of Psychoanalysis 5:189-198

Dodes, L.M. (2003) Addiction and Psychoanalysis. Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis 11:123-134

Flores, P.J. (2004) Addiction as an Attachment Disorder