Videotape Recording of Narcotic Addicts in Group Therapy: the Analysis of Communicational and Interactive Behavior
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 069 571 SO 004 889 AUTHOR Soloway, Iry TITLE Videotape Recording of Narcotic Addicts in Group Therapy: The Analysis of Communicational and Interactive Behavior. INSTITUTION Pennsylvania State Dept. of Public Welfare, Harrisburg. PUB DATE 71 NOTE 80p. EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29 DESCRIPTORS *Behavioral Science Research; *Cultural Traits; *Drug Abuse; Drug Addiction; Experimental Groups; Models; Research Design; *Research Methodology; Socially Deviant Behavior; Video Tape Recordings IDENTIFIERS *Drug Use ABSTRACT An approach to the study of drug sub-culture groups and a model for predictive research in the identification and isolation of heroin addicts are developed in this thesis. The basic methodologies employed are the linguistic methods of Kenneth Pike and Claude Levi-Strauss for use in the analysis of social phenomena. Communicative mechanisms by which members of a group of addicts will establish and maintain the territorial integrity of their social subsystems are isolated and identified by the use of sound and visual recording devices in a controlled experiment attempting to examine the relationship of behavior patterns to the communicational patterns and interactional dynamics of the subjects. The use c audio-visual devices permits the investigator to repeatedly examine segments of behavior. In the study of drug addiction it is necessary to examine the social and cultural matrices from which the pathology springs and the communicative networks, channels, and patterns which serve it and support it. (Author /SJM) SCOPE OF INTEREST NOTICE f NIC fAt Ohm .f.ssqp,...1 II., .14,4 ,01,..1.1 101 000,10,9 I" on.' .5 Asc. of oNtrtest to trio cto.st trot- Iht otet, noted /0 Mt: t.yh1. aNte. Shout( talrrr f ,00,r Roots of vIro, ":` :7::.;*: 1*. FILMED FROM BEST AVAILABLECOPY U.S DEPARTNIENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION d WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS SEENREPRO DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVEDFROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATIONORIG INATING IT POINTS OF VIEWOR OPIN- IONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICEOF EDU- CATION POSITION OR POW.? VIDECT P:C; OF NARCOTIC A MITTS IN GPSU7 r. !. 7Y . THE ANALYSIS OF COY_ aYTICATI 7AL AND INTERACTIVE BF,H IRV SOLO: TAY VIDEOTAPE RECORDING OF Ni.RCOTIC ADDICTS IN GROUP THERAPY: THE ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATIONAL AND INTERACTIVE BEHAVIOR. IRV SOLOWAY FOR TIlE RLT 4 The proceeding materivl wns g:itheco4 :mthor cm- ployed as Research Associate in Anthropology in the Addiction R...cc-::.irch Section.of the Narcotic Addiction Rehabilitation Program (M.A.R.P.). N.A.R.P. is part of the(West Philadelphia Community Mental Health Consortium, a comprehensive mental health facility serving the cit.- izens of West Philadelphia. The author has been emoloyed in th,i, above capacity since 1 June, '970. As a member of the recearch staff Le has full access; to all clinical and psychiatric data and socio- epidemiological material relating to the patient porJulation at the Narcotic Rehabilitation Program being treated for chronic opiate dependency. 5 I must gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of Acthur U. Moffett, M.S.W., Director of Research and Evaluation at the Narcotic Addiction Rehabilitation Program for his consistent support and ad7ico throughout the course of his project, Mr. Charles artucci, .E.W., Director of Training at the West Philadelphia. Community :.!sntal 1:.2.11th Consortium for providing the video-tape equipment and for technical advice in its use. Drs. Jay Ruby and Denisa O'Brien r.:ust he ao..mcw- ledged for their enthusiasm, support, and reMarkable patience during the entire prc :ess of preparing this thesis. Iwould be remi=ss in recognizing my obligations if I did not slicerely thank the fourper- sons who were the subjects of this stucly. ror oky:icus reasons they must remain anonymous. They are but repres*:Itative of a group of people little understnod, desperhtely feared, aad in urgent need of serious study. If the following report has any validity it is due to the con- tribution of the persons acknowledged. i am, however, solely res- ponsible for any inaccuracies or deficiencies in the text of this thesis. Irving U. Solo way Philadelphia Genered Hospital 1971 TABLE OFcotiTE::rs INTRODUCTION PAO8 1 SECTION I PREDICTIVE RESEARCH IN TILE SOC.17..1.scir,:r.ms Pr.r:E 3 SECTION II . LOCATING THE "DRUG SUBCULTURE" 1)1.1311 8 SECTION III . .COIVUNICATION AND CULTURE PACT 12 SECTION IV. ..NONLINGUISTIC COn'TUN IC TTION CInt.:1Ers pAca16 SECTION V NATURAL CONTROLLLD EX nt:Ii+ 11:::T PA? SECTION VI .. THE POPULATION ANDVIDS0TAFING . DACE 2:; SECTION VII... DESCRIPTIONOF TM "EPISOZIFS " PAGE 35 r SECTION VIII .ANALYS IS OF THE " EP ISC'DV: PAGE 3:i SECTION IX . ':'.01s1C:rat S IONS F-T.CE 5 SECTION X APPENDICES 7.`P.GE Z. 3 APPENDIX 3. FOR: I P;C:E 65 APPENDIX II PQL!I P171:17:L, 1:2.r-'12; 6'3 REFERENCES C TE'D PAGF 67 Jacques D.Van Vlack !I Studies in Human Commun. E. Penna. Psychiatric inst. 1.1Henry Ave., Phila., Pa.19129 "...la verite n'a pas besoin d'etre dite pour etre manifestee..."* Proust, M. A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. II Le Cote de Guernantes. p 66 *"...the truth need not be uttered to be made apparent..." -1- .INTRODUCTIUS. The following thesis is an attemptto develop an approach to the study of those groups inwhich full-scale participant-observation is hindered by the very natueeof the group being studied, andto develop a method of predictiveresearch for the examination of these types of grOups, in thisparticular case heroin addicts. The plat: of the thesis is asfollcws. Section I deals with and proposes the nature of predictiveresearch in the social sciences in anthropological an adaptation ofthe linguistic model to be used and criticism predictive stulies. Section II is a general examination used of the term "drug sub-culture" asthe term ':as been defined and by non-anthroIologist socialscientists. Section 2IT discvcsos a communication-oriented view of cultureand develops the idea that "deviant" behevior is a state offaulty communication networrs. The section ccnclue.es with a proposal todevelop a method which izolate:4 the emic level of the communicationcode of a group, such as the "drug sub-culture" and thenisolating within that code those elements which are unique to the members ofthe group under consideration. Section IV is a review of the studyof non-linguistic channels of problems of working communication. Section V briefly considers the with a "deviant" population and proposes amethod of study in which the observor creates a simulatedsituation. Section VI describes the population of the study anddiscusses the video-taping process recording technology in anthropologicalresearch. and the role of visual Sections VII and VIII containdescriptEcns of the episodes studied and analyses of those episodes on avariety of behavioral levels: geographic; postural; kinesic;contextual; and serial. Section IX, the conclusion, is a general su_nraation of the entire thesis and dis- cusses the place of anthropology in the study of drug addiction. The conclusion also proposes a series of projects which would contribute to the isolation and identification of the cognitive orientation, the "world view" of theuxbag opiate addict. -3- SECTIO:4 "Behavioral scientists can be roughly divided into two groups: those who atlere to the scientific :-tatus of physical scientists and, in consequence, tend to select research problms that yield to the analytic method: and those who are moved by a need to 'understana man'. The former stand in danger of trivializi:g _he study of man, ...the latter stand in danger of obscuring the study cE man in free - :'heeling speculations without sufficient anchorages in facts or testable hypotheses." (Rapaport: 1968, XXII.) In an Erticie entitled "Language an0 the Analysis of Social Laws."(1967, L4-65) Claude Levi-Strauss dincusses the :mo;:,1c::ic surrounaing tha nature of predictive research in the social sciences. His frame of reference is the work of the cybernetician Nerbert Wiener (1954) in which Wiener criticizes the adoption by the social sciences of the natural scientist's mathematical models ce prediction. Wiener essentially has two obje.:tions to the use of mathematical models in the social sciences. In the first place, the very nature of the ob- jects to be bt.:died in the social sciences zake inevitable the fact that the object of study is affected by the intervention of the ob- servor (Levi-Strauss: 1967, Z4). ...even the best-intentioned observation is a cultural perfornance and, explicitly channelized, w111 tt.nd toward moral perception, cognition,'and raticnalisation." (Birclwhistell: 1959 (a), 9). Secondly, the ma! lal to be c%amined in the social scicrcc.s "...arc defined within our ownsphere of interests; they concern questiens of the life,education, career and death of individuals. Therefore the statisical runs availa7:11e for the study of a given phenomenon arealways far too short to lay the foundation of avalid induction." (Levi-Strauss: 1%7, 54-55). Levi-Strw'ss, then, suggests that if thesocial scjences are ever to reach a "level cfpredictive reliability compar.tble to that of the natural sciences a technique must bedeveloped in which the data are moved beyoni the consciouscontrol of the observor and to the point of refinement in which a statistical in lonj.enough for expressionin mathematical flw.ctions venerated. "...unless we can develep a methodologywhich permits an objective c....aluation, the shape cf the eventswhich w,=. Abstract the external envirenment will undoubtedly have the shir.e of the biasing screen of our owncultural experience." i'i.irdwhistell: 1959 (a), 8-9). Such a technique, such a model, 'for predictiveresearch in the social sciences exists within the methodologyemployed by structural and desci-ivtive linguistics. The central conerpt underlying thf: linguistic model is that language exists only as, acollectivs ccn- street (Lcvi-St_ aess:1N57,55) in which the components onthe most 'I.