Alexander And Mate's Theory Of Addiction

Alexander and Maté both have excellent and well thought through ideas that surround why addiction occurs in people. Alexander believes that addiction is triggered when a person undergoes dislocation while Maté believes that it is caused by negative events that occur during childhood. Both explain why the majority of people are addicts with valid points but neither is without faults. Because Alexander believes that addiction is caused by a change in location, broken relationships, and a disconnected community be cannot explain addictions in people with perfectly stable lives with stable relationships. And Maté lacks explanations for non-dopamine related addictions occur. While Alexander’s beliefs make sense and while Maté’s perspective has issues, …show more content…
This perspective makes perfect sense, especially with the types of people he works with. It is certainly true that a large portion of drug addicts did have traumatic childhoods. He even explains why well loved and well cared for children later turn to addiction. His explanation mainly has to do with stress, whether it is stress that the child themselves experienced due to their situation or stress that they picked up on from people that they are around. This is not surprising, especially with the science to back him up. In fact, his standpoint is basically the same as what is taught in high school biology classes about why addiction occurs because it is chemistry that people know actually happens. How a child is raised does make a difference on their brain development and drugs can supplement what their brain make them crave. But what about non-drug addiction? Does a person who is addicted to work in their job receive dopamine from the high pressure and stress? That does not seem to be likely. But in general his explanation works with all types of addictions. People become addicts because of the need for something that they do not have. And they do not have it because of their childhoods. His theory would even explain why people do not have addiction problems until perhaps fifty years after the trauma. It would most likely be because of a trigger that would cause them to lose the …show more content…
Both also have beliefs as to how their theories could help with addiction treating and prevention But in the end, Maté’s argument seems to be the most valid. He does have holes and cannot explain some aspects of addiction, but the majority of it makes sense because he explains from a scientific perspective as to why people seek and become addicted to substances and activities. And while Alexander fails to explain why people do not become addicts, Maté is able to do this just as easily as he explains why people are. Maté’s argument still leaves out a few types of addiction, but his perspective better explains the majority of people. Both theories make sense and complement each other well. In fact, if portions of Maté’s theory were to be applied to Alexander’s there would be a much smaller gap that he would be unable to