What does it mean to be addicted to a substance? When we talk about addiction, we usually think of drugs. However, “drug” is not a strictly scientific term—it belongs more to social, and probably legal, vocabulary. It defines a group of substances that are capable of causing addiction or whose possession and distribution are prohibited by law. But how do we approach the issue from a clinical perspective? Let me explain it in my own words.
The journey through Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders concludes with the following two disorders: Pyromania and Kleptomania. These are probably words we already know, but let’s go over them again.
In the previous post, we saw how the angry outbursts of Intermittent Explosive Disorder can even culminate in physical aggression. The next step is the inability to control behavior, which may lead to harming others (through aggression, theft, or property destruction) with a possible lack of concern for the consequences of one’s actions. This is the case of Conduct Disorder.
When I talked about emotions, I explained the concept of the priority of negative emotions. This is an evolutionary concept, according to which negative emotions such as anger and fear are activated more quickly than others because they are adaptive. In other words, recognizing anger in others and in oneself helps avoid a potentially harmful escalation.
In the previous post, I introduced Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders. I described them as disorders involving difficulties in self-regulation of both behaviors (that violate the rights of others and social norms) and emotions (such as anger).
The world we live in is a social world, made up of social norms but also laws that must be respected. Learning to control our behavior in order to live peacefully within society is an important skill to acquire. Resolving disputes by attacking others, taking possession of goods through theft, or releasing anger by destroying things are behaviors that distance us from the social context and could lead to the restriction of personal freedom. Behaviors that violate the rights of others and contradict social norms fall under the category of Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders.
When talking about gender identity, we saw how the gender assigned at birth may not align with an individual’s perceived gender.
Sometimes, this lack of correspondence can lead to psychological distress, and in this case, we talk about gender-related dysphoria.
In the previous posts, we looked at how to define sex according to biological principles—that is, the conditions that allow us to classify an individual's sex as female, male, or intersex.
Gender, on the other hand, relates to an individual's experience of themselves—how they perceive themselves as female, male, or non-binary (neither female nor male)—and how they want to be recognized in the society they live in.
It’s a complex and controversial topic, so let’s approach it step by step.
Biological sex includes all those purely biological characteristics that allow us to classify an individual’s sex as female or male.
However, we will see how these characteristics do not always allow for a binary definition of sex (i.e., female or male). Sometimes, these characteristics lead to being “somewhere in between the two sexes,” which brings us to the concept of intersexuality.
What is gender? For a long time, we were taught that there are "girls and boys" and that generally girls fall in love with boys and vice versa. Sometimes, boys fall in love with other boys and, probably less frequently, girls fall in love with other girls. In the last ten years, we have been learning many new things about gender, so it’s better to make things a bit clearer. As usual, I’ll try to explain it in my own words.
