Overview

This volume critically interrogates the dominant understanding of ‘addiction’ and ‘addicts’. It examines the proliferation of the addiction concept by psychiatry and other psy-professions, exploring the processes and underlying drivers of this form of medicalisation. Through discussions from leading scholars in the field on gambling, smoking, opioids, and drug use, as well as the passionate engagement with social media, sport, sex, pornography, opioids, and psychedelics, the collection argues that addiction is better understood as a sociological rather than psychiatric phenomenon. It contends that the discourse of addiction is fundamentally political in nature, rather than purely medical. In doing so, this timely collection fills a significant gap in academic knowledge. It will be of strong interest to scholars and students of mental health and addiction, as well as to critical practitioners working in these areas.

Full Product Details

Author:   Bruce M. Z. Cohen ,  Martin Harbusch ,  Jo Reichertz ,  Peter J. Adams
Publisher:   Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Imprint:   Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN:  

9783032063120

ISBN 10:   3032063124
Pages:   356
Publication Date:   04 February 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Foreword – Peter J. Adams.- 1: Introduction: Pathologising pleasure? – Bruce M. Z. Cohen, Martin Harbusch & Jo Reichertz.- PART 1: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES.- 2: The ecological niche of behavioural addictions – Baptiste Brossard, Emmanuelle Larocque, Nicolas Moreau, Dahlia Namian & Mélissa Roy.- 3: The triangle of medicalisation: Pathways for interactive negotiation of diseases, disorders and addictions – Martin Harbusch.- 4: The communicative construction of addiction – Jo Reichertz.- 5: A Marxist theory of addiction – Bruce M. Z. Cohen.- PART 2: NEGOTIATING ‘ADDICTION’.- 6: The social construction of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ addicts: How relabelling addiction shaped the opioid epidemic – Thaddeus Müller.- 7: Excessive appetites and disarming innovations: The shifting socio-materialities of nicotine and gambling addiction – Mark Elam.- 8: ‘Addiction’ and agency at the threshold of infinite pornographic access – Kris Taylor.- PART 3: CONSPICUOUS BEHAVIOURS AS ‘ADDICTIONS’.- 9: Wellness, addiction and temperance – Richard Hammersley.- 10: Using sports: Constructing extremity as addiction – Lars Arntsen & Nancy D. Campbell.- 11: From medicalisation to cultural embrace: Drug foundationalism versus techné in the psychedelic revival – Tehseen Noorani.- PART 4: MEDIA, POLITICAL AND PUBLIC DISCOURSE.- 12: Addiction discoveries: Hyping and spinning the superiority of neuroscience – Matilda Hellman.- 13: Social media, dark patterns and contemporary discourses of addiction – Cherie Lacey, Ian Goodwin & Antonia Lyons.- 14: The instrumentalization of the concept of ‘gambling addiction’: A discourse analysis of German parliamentary debates – Gerd Möll.- 15: Aesthetic pathologisation: Cinema, psychiatry and sex addiction – Baptiste Brossard & Benjamin Hemmings.

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Author Information

Bruce M. Z. Cohen is an Associate Professor in sociology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Martin Harbusch is Professor for research methods at the University of Siegen, Germany. Jo Reichertz is Emeritus Professor of sociology and communication science at the University Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

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