Deficits of Prospective Capacity as Possible Mechanism in Pathogenesis of Alcohol Dependence

Abstract

The article presents a taxonomy of prospective capacity (PC) relying on the up-to-date understanding of its neurobiological and psychological mechanisms. The rationale for the existence of a dissociation between adaptive and maladaptive manifestations of explicit and implicit forms of PC rests on a study of clinical cases of alcohol-dependent patients (N=5) and adult children of alcoholics (N=1), who ap plied for outpatient psychotherapy of alcohol dependence or related issues. The patients underwent specific semi-structured interviews (Shustov et al., 2000; Johnsson, 2011); completed the Life Line method (Nurkova, 2000) and compiled genograms (McGoldrick et al, 2008). Based on the findings of clinical case studies, the authors have proposed that alcohol-dependent patients’ PC deficits that aggravate the course of alcohol dependence may relate to the existence of socially and culturally bound automatic prospective schemata, i.e. scripts that relate to specific states of self and actualize under uncertainty, stress and/or alcohol intoxication.