Teenagers and Drug Abuse
Various theorists have tried to explain the reasons teenagers engage in drug and substance abuse while others don’t.
Firstly, B. F Skinner (1982) had in place the theory that in some instances people are not responsible for their own personal behaviour if they don’t have a hand in creating and initiating it, but normally pick the behavior from elsewhere (Skinner, 2001). One may infer this to mean that in most cases, the environment that a teenager is always around may be a major determinant of whether or not he or she will be a drug abuser or not. For instance, if the teenager is always around a group of drug abusers, there’s a large probability that he or she may, in the end, be a drug abuser whereas if the teenager has no place of picking up the behavior they may not get addicted to the drugs.
Secondly, Erik Erickson developed the various theories of psychological development and when it comes to teenagers he had in place the identity versus role confusion theory, which he stated that the teenager is worried about how he or she will be perceived by the society (Martino,Grilo, and Fehon, 2000).From this theory, an individual may infer the other reason for teenagers being drug abusers due to peer pressure. This is mainly due to the fact that, in most cases, when the adolescent’s peers are abusing drugs and they ask him or her to join them, this theory tends to show that he or she will always agree to join them since they would always want to impress their peers by taking risks.
Thirdly, Albert Bandura (1977), suggested that as per his cognitive mapping theory, people learn to do things by them having the chance to observe and perform the action without particularly having to practice it and at times produce very positive results when they perform that particular action (Spada, 2010). This may be used to infer the reason why teenagers may end up being drug abusers and this may be by them having the chance to observe drug abusers and may have the ability to abuse the drugs when they have the opportunity to do so.
Lastly, UrieBronfenbrenner’s ecological theory may be a reason for a teenager to be a drug abuser since his Chronosystem explains that at times events in the family set up may be reasoned from a teenager to engage in some activities (Susic, 1999). For example, at times, the parents may be divorced or the parents may be in a violent relationship and it has been proved that at the time the teenager may end up getting into drug abuse due to family issues. This is mainly from the fact that at times when the teenager has always seen the parents arguing or fighting or when the parents are divorced; may be reason enough for him to start abusing drugs (Susic, 1999).
References
Martino, S., Grilo, C. M. and Fehon, D. C. (2000).Development of the Drug Abuse Screening Test for adolescents (DAST-A). Addictive Behaviors, 25, 57-70.
New Hope Foundation (2012). Adolescents and substance abuse: It’s all about engagement retrieved from:http://www.newhopefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Adolescents-and-Substance-Abuse.pdf
Skiner, Harvey (2001). "Assessment of Substance Abuse: Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST)." Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol, and Addictive Behaviour. Retrieved from: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3403100068.html
Spada, Marcantonio(2010). Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Problem Drinking: A Practitioner's Guide. Routledge 1-10
Susic, Paul (1999).Substance Abuse from the Freudian View. Retrieved from http://www.psychtreatment.com/substance_abuse_from_the_freudian_view.htm
