Addictive Personalities and Why People Take Drugs

Dr Gary Winship is a UKCP registered psychoanalytic psychotherapist, Associate Professor at the School of Education in Nottingham, and MA course leader in Trauma Studies. He is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Mental Health, Nottingham University, and visiting lecturer at UCL, University of Greenwich, UEL, and Goldsmiths. He is also senior adult psychotherapist at the Berkshire NHS Trust, Broadmoor & Maudsley Hospitals, and has published over ninety clinical papers and six books.

'Gary Winship has produced a highly original exploration of drug taking in the twenty-first century. Beginning with a clear statement that this issue is a growing and poorly managed one, the author draws on a wide range of classical thought, psychoanalytic theory, and his own clinical experience to explore a fresh approach to understanding why people take drugs. This book will be very useful for students in clinical fields such as nursing, social care, psychotherapy, and drug support work. It is also an important contribution to the drug policy debate.'- Professor Nick Manning, 
Director, Institute of Mental Health,
 University of Nottingham / Notts HC NHS Trust'Gary Winship's Addictive Personalities and Why People Take Drugs: The Spike and the Moon is an imaginative and innovative book, taking the reader through many fields of addiction, from cultural locations and ancient myths of addiction, through psychodynamic theories of addiction, to controversies in contemporary drug policy. The author's scholarship and experience are impressive, as is the clarity with which he tackles the subject. Given the widespread nature of substance misuse in society, it is timely to have a book offering such a fresh re-think.'- Martin Weegmann, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, group analyst, and author

• Preface , Fixing The pill mentality , Creation myths and breast junkies: in search of milk and honey , “Dracula”: from Stoker’s classic of compulsion to Arthur’s dark room , The Prometheus Syndrome: addiction, death, and the liver in mind , The pleasure paradox: nirvana and death dependency , Major Tom, Lucy, Bion, and the psychotic vacuum 1