Selective Neurologisation: Examining The Relationship Between Addiction Treatment Providers’ Use Of Neuroscience And Client Subjectivity

• In Event: Neurosocieties: Interdisciplinary Explorations of the Brain, Culture and Ethics 3

Abstract

Addiction neuroscience hopes to uncover the neural basis of addiction and deliver a wide range of novel neuro-interventions to improve the efficacy of addiction treatment. The translation of addiction neuroscience to practice has, however, been widely viewed as a ‘bench to bedside’ failure. Our qualitative study of addiction treatment providers’ accounts uncovers how neuroscience is already at work in the addiction clinic and elucidates how ‘neurologic subjects’ are constituted in contemporary practice. We draw upon interviews with 20 Australian treatment providers, ranging from addiction psychiatrists in clinics to case-workers in therapeutic communities (many of whom were themselves ‘in recovery’), in order to examine how treatment providers partially and sometimes reflexively utilise neuroscience to articulate client subjectivity (in a process we call ‘selective neurologisation’). Our findings provide insights into how neuroscientific concepts are embedded within wider belief systems and explanatory models underlying addiction, how treatment providers account for the limits of neuroscience for their work, and how the deployment of neuroscience in practice is contingent on varying structural and contextual factors within local ecologies of care. Finally, we reflect on the implications of treatment providers’ selective deployment of neuroscience for treatment, the scientific translation of addiction research, and future policy development both in Australia and internationally.

Authors

• Anthony Barnett, Monash University

• Martyn Pickersgill, University of Edinburgh

• Adrian Carter, Monash University