The Latin addictus refers to a person who is bound and dependent as a result of unpaid debts. Metaphorically, this term came to be used for any behavior that results from a heavy dependence on something, such as a drug. A number of common substances or those that can be freely purchased can be used as drugs or become addictive substances: medication, alcoholic beverages, glue, and so on. Psychoanalytically, the power of a particular addiction depends both on the unconscious fantasies that underlie the subject's ingestion, and the substance's actual chemical effect.

Sigmund Freud refers to addiction in an early paper on "Hypnosis" (1891d, p. 106), and in a letter to Wilhelm Fliess of December 22, 1897, he refers to masturbation as the "primary addiction" (1950a, p. 272; 1985c, p. 287). Karl Abraham (1908/1927) studied alcohol addiction. Sándor Radó (1933) associated addiction with a regression to childhood. Otto Fenichel...