Review: Addictive Behavior in Children and Young Adults

Addictive Behavior in Children and Young Adults: the Struggle for Freedom, by Raoul Goldberg, MD

review by Meg Spencer Gorman (2013)

This “book for every bookshelf” is important for anyone who has dealt with addiction, has family or friends involved in addictive behaviors, or is a professional in fields dealing with addiction. Using his lifetime of successful experience as a medical doctor and therapist, Dr. Goldberg approaches addiction as a process arising out of unsatisfied needs and gratification. Addiction develops when the gratification becomes too powerful to resist, and a person loses the self-determination to decide what is good for her or him. To some degree all humanity is caught up in some aspect of the addictive process. As Dr. Goldberg puts it, “We lay out a lifelong struggle between wanting to gratify our lower soul nature and controlling this with our higher human resources….This is the main game of human evolution, and it is within this life spectrum of dependency that addictive behavior needs to be understood.”

Dr. Goldberg then explores how addictions arise out of the unmet needs in a human biography especially out of our lives as young children. To be effective counselors or supporters in this area, we need to become excellent observers, which he calls “awakening to the deep experience” of the other. In the simplest terms this means observing an object, in this case the growing human being, as carefully and as consciously as possible.

In a process Goldberg characterizes as enter, exit, and behold, we work with an addicted individual by using conscious imitation so that we can slip into the skin of the other to feel how the individual perceives the world. Then we move away from this experience and observe the after image of it as best we can. This helps bring deep insight to the situation. It is important not to see a young person as helpless and ourselves as the solution. “This violates the enshrined principle to respect and trust the child’s inner resources,” because a “child in his unborn nature, carries the innate guidance for his own life journey.”

However, it is crucial that we begin with ourselves and resolve our own issues in regard to addiction. Just as Rudolf Steiner reminds the readers of 'Knowledge of the Higher Worlds' that one must take serious steps in one’s moral life in the pursuit of spiritual knowledge, Dr. Goldberg insists that managing addiction begins with the ethical principles of the team surrounding the human being who has addictive issues. As any serious anthroposophist knows, this demands a commitment to living an examined life.

Using accessible language, Dr. Goldberg addresses the three-fold human being of body, soul, and spirit in relationship to the core “I” of the human being. He describes the first three seven-year cycles (familiar to anthroposophists and the Waldorf community), and the kinds of gestures that one needs in one’s tool chest to be able meet the growing human being. This is a very well-written book filled with basic anthroposophical insights expressed in clear, simple language that any reader can easily grasp. One could almost call it a practical guide to Rudolf Steiner’s 'Study of Man'.

Dr. Goldberg uses the same system to unravel every kind of addiction. The therapist must identify the unfulfilled primary need that creates the pain that wants to be blocked and manifests in the discomfort for which a substitute is found to ease the pain temporarily. This situation creates a secondary need for the substitute and, eventually, an addiction to it. In this process the health giver comes to an understanding of the individual’s “deeper needs and vulnerable nature.” Once an understanding partnership with the addictive person has been achieved, and the client can welcome rehabilitation, then a contract can be made and a multi-dimensional team of professionals put in place to support the individual. This includes “parents, teachers, community members, health practitioner, and therapists.” Once an appropriate detoxification program is in place, therapeutic interventions are determined based on the needs of the client. The healing program may incorporate everything from art and music therapies to gardening, from animal care and hippotherapy to Kung Fu and eurythmy.

Using thorough, current, exoteric research in the field, Dr. Goldberg explores a wide range of addictions from caffeine to alcohol, and from marijuana to harder drugs like LSD and heroin. One of his best chapters addresses addiction in relationship to media and screen time, really a must-read for all parents. He also speaks of violence against others and the self, including the biological self-destructiveness of things like auto-immune illnesses. He then describes ways to ameliorate these activities.

In his final chapters, Dr. Goldberg moves to a deep and rich level. He reviews the different kinds of physical constitutions, the temperaments, and the seven character types, and indicates appropriate ways to work with them. Then he speaks of what he calls the “battle for the human soul” and the forces that are working against individual freedom and are the impediments to free will.

Young people today are, in a certain way, seduced by our culture to lose the sense of their true selves. It is up to us elders, as harbingers of wisdom, to help them let go of “the dependency that belongs to the past,” and to enable them to find the “freedom that strives toward the future.”

This is a book rich in insight and good, sound, common sense to help us support the next generation with compassion and successful intervention. In the opinion of this long-time high school teacher, the book should be on the shelf of anyone, especially parents, teachers, and therapists, helping young people find their essential selves.

Meg Gorman is a veteran Waldorf high school teacher of humanities and teacher education instructor. She is a member of the Section for the Social Science of the School for Spiritual Science.