Essay guideline
The assignment comprises of an essay of 3,000 words in which you will compare different theories of substance use and misuse of a chosen psychoactive substance and relate them to the social and cultural context.
To help you structure your essay you should follow the points below:
- Select a substance (Alcohol)
- Briefly give account of the chosen substance and outline it using social, historical, and/or cultural context.
- Define the different concepts and explanations regarding; use, problem use and dependence for the chosen substance.
- Discuss national patterns and trends regarding the substance, please use institutional reports to correctly describe the prevalence in the essay (make sure that at level 6 UK prevalence statistic are present in the essay with a little criticism towards the measure used).
- Choose 3 theories of addiction describe and evaluate them (IMPORTANT: you must use empirical evidence appropriately and support its influence or efficacy in explaining addiction). Thereafter, compare the theories evaluated with the WHO Model of Dependence: Bio-psycho-social model (this will be your third theory in the assignment, make sure you describe what the WHO Biopsychosocial model is, and use it to highlight the complexity of addiction through synergy of the different paradigms discussed).
- Discuss the implications for practice. If you are unable to apply this to practice due to lack of experience you can discuss what each model adds to understanding of ‘Addiction’ in the field. Furthermore, you may want to highlight the synergy of the theories. This may be used to explain how different models and theories of addiction support and explain different aspects (i.e. they all add to our current understanding of addiction but no particular theory in isolation can comprehensively explain addiction). Please make an appointment to discuss this with the module leader (Dr Luisa Perrino) if you feel it would benefit you.
Define the different concepts and explanations regarding; use, problem use and dependence for the chosen substance.
