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Heroin Addiction and Related Clinical Problems: 2023, 25, N1 (pages: 37 - 41)

Artistic clues to the diagnosis of bipolar dual disorder in opioid addicts. The case of Nachtmystium

Pacini M., and Maremmani I.

Summary: Addiction, to some extent, is not a solitary behaviour but a dialogue with one's brain, potentially someone else, who stops talking and answering and later gives bad feedback. The drug becomes mute, while addiction is the only language to witness. Often addicts have partners with whom they share part of their addictive history, or who witness their increasing commitment into it. The following synthesis of an addictive history is a perfect example of how a totally negative content (being speechless, impotent, abandoned, detached…) leading to a suicidal thought (symbolized by the “cutting” metaphor) is rendered, paradoxically, by a communicative fantasy. Cutting the day that would come to interrupt the pain of addiction is referred to a hypothetical lover (oneself?), with whom the experience began long before…