Elizabeth Ricca

PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF URBAN AND SUBURBAN HEROIN ABUSERS: MORE DATA AND ANOTHER REPLY TO SUTKER AND ALLAIN (1973)

Sutker and Allain (1973) suggest that nonincarcerated heroin addicts who are involved in the “street life style” would tend to obtain elevated scores on the Hs, D, Hy and Pd scales of the MMPI. If these findings were cross-validated, then personality descriptions of addicts would have to be modified accordingly. Also, improvement measured by decreases on the Hs and Hy scales soon after entering a drug-free environment may be a result of milieu differences rather than personality change. Four groups of heroin addicts, two hospitalized, urban drug abusers who were free of drug influence at testing (Hospitalized1 and Hospitalized2) were compared with two street addict samples, one from an urban (StreetNARA), the other a suburban (StreetSCNCC) environment. It was hypothesized that both the StreetNARA and StreetSCNCC groups would score significantly higher than the hospitalized groups and that there would be no differences between the hospitalized groups. As was expected, the street samples scored statistically higher on the Hs and Hy scales. However, data for the D and Pd scales failed to cross-validate the Sutker-Allain hypothesis. These data suggest that personality characteristics play a more dominant role in MMPI score elevations than the “street life style.” This contention was also supported by test-retest data on the Hospitalized2 sample measuring the effect of 90 days of hospitalization in a drug-free environment.

Psychological needs of suburban male heroin addicts.

Summary The Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS), an objective test of Murrays theory of personality development, was completed by 51 male applicants to a county methadone maintenance program. Tests of significance (t) were applied to the suburban heroin addict sample (n = 51) and to the general adult male normative sample (n = 4031) data to determine if they scored differently on the 15 EPPS psychological need constructs. Because of the disproportionate sample sizes, a hypothetical sample (n = 51) was drawn from the normative sample for comparative purposes. Questions raised in these analyses were the following: Do heroin addicts differ in psychological need structure from the general adult male population? What motivates and directs behavior? What are the factors leading to the psychological availability to abusing drugs? What may make addicts resistant to psychotherapy?

Interrelations among Psychological Needs of Suburban Heroin Addicts

Among the 15 variables assessed by the EPPS for 59 male and female applicants to a suburban methadone maintenance program the pattern, direction and magnitudes of correlations between need states were significantly different from those of the normative sample. The implications of the tendency of addicts to associate positively a number of incompatible needs for: (1) counseling, (2) generating interpersonal conflict, and (3) understanding the addict as an individual were discussed.

Manifest psychological needs of heroin addicts

Abstract This study examines the factor structure of manifest psychological needs (as measured by the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule) in a sample of 59 male and female heroin addicts. Four basic need states (factors) are revealed by the analysis; two appear to be indicative of intrapsychic conflict, two appear to be the motivational bases underlying “street life” behaviors.