SOAD8011 Understanding Addictions

This topic has been designed to help social work students understand more about addiction, particularly addictions that threaten people's health, livelihoods and family lives, such as those relating to drug abuse, gambling and over-consumption. The topic will be taught critically, with questions raised not just about how we constitute addictions and addictive behaviour, but also how social workers, might participate in activities that address the problems that 'addicts' and others believe stem from addictions.

• Conceptualising addiction:
  • We look at how ideas of addiction help shape understandings of what it means to be a proper citizen and a proper gendered subject in Western liberal societies
• Understanding different addictions:
  • We consider how and why some addictions are treated differently in Australian society, with some that are legal and encouraged, and others that are actively scorned
• Responding to addictions:
  • We investigate the main responses in Western liberal democracies to three types of addiction: drug abuse, gambling and over-consumption. We will examine the implications of treating addiction as crime but also an illness. We will also consider the Stages of Change Model, as it is applied in accordance with the principles of abstinence and harm minimisation

2. Conceptualise addictions and associated concepts (such as abstinence, harm minimisation and zero tolerance) as they are understood in Australia and beyond
4. Critically analyse different public perceptons of different addictions and explicatehow social locations affect our understanding of addictions in western liberal democracies
6. Articulate ways in which social workers might respond to people presenting with problems of addiction