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Heroin Addiction and Related Clinical Problems: 2011, 13, 4 (pages: 13 - 20)

Latent suicidality in heroin addicts

Budiša D., Gavrilov-Jerković V., Dickov A., Vučković N., Mitrović D., Svilokos S.

Summary: According to the transactional analysis (TA) theory of personality development and the development of psychopathology, any behaviour that indirectly or directly threatens someone's physical integrity could be a manifestation of the 'Don't exist' injunction and the script decision to die young. A 'don't exist' injunction is defined as a parental message that challenges a child's right to live, and that can be sent directly or indirectly, verbally or nonverbally, intentionally or unintentionally. An (early) script decision is defined as a compromise between the various authentic needs and requirements of the environment. The theoretical assumption on which this work is based is that a mentioned injunction and script decision to die young could be present in the population of heroin addicts, considering their continuous and repeated self-destructive behaviours and, typically, short lifetimes. The main objective of this work was to check the assumption that the 'Don't exist' injunction and the script decision to die young are theoretical concepts that are available for measurement through questionnaires and have the potential to discriminate heroin addicts from non-clinical examinees. The general research method that was selected was non-experimental, correlation research; the sample consisted of 50 heroin addicts and 50 non-clinical examinees. Its results confirm the hypothesis that both measured theoretical concepts have the potential to discriminate heroin addicts from non-clinical examinees. Heroin addicts have, to a statistically significant degree, a more strongly marked “Don't exist” injunction, together with the script decision to die young. This finding may be related to the theoretical assumptions of several authors in the TA – assumptions which include the concept that psychoactive substances allow a person to implement the script decision to die young.