The Hand of Addiction: A Transcontextual and Autoethnographic Becoming

The Hand of Addiction maps out addiction from an innovative and holistic perspective, challenging the pervasive discourses surrounding addiction in many fields. Using the metaphor of a hand, the author examines addiction through five conceptual lenses--biomedical, psychological, sociocultural, developmental, and spiritual.

The book successfully integrates Gregory Bateson’s understanding of the human hand, and further extends it to the study of addiction, studying the relationships between the different fingers (lenses) to reveal how the study of addiction so far has been myopic and compartmentalized. Using an autoethnographic approach, the author constructs a transcontextual mapping of the potential of addiction, and challenges what we claim to know about addiction, aiming to understand addiction from a novel perspective. The book also discusses practical strategies that can be used to support those with addiction in various forms.

An important contribution to the literature on addiction studies, this book will be of great interest to academics and postgraduate students in the fields of psychology, sociology, cultural studies and other related disciplines. It will also be relevant for those interested in the philosophy and ethnography of addiction or those working in mental health.

Weston Robins is the President and Founder of Eternal Strength Center for Radical Youth Work. He obtained his PhD in Psychology from the University of West Georgia in 2022. He is currently working in the fields of youth work studies, addiction studies and broad-based critical psychologies as both a researcher, teacher and clinical practitioner.