The importance of body experiences in structuring knowledge and in organizing personality has been stressed by studies conducted in the field of medical disciplines, as physiology and neuro - pathology, and has been acknowledged by many psychological theories and studies.

The present study concerned with body images and experiences of drug addict subjects is inspired by a series of previous researches on the development of internal body image from childhood to adolescence, and by the relevance and peculiarities of literature, where central themes appear related to auto-destruction, auto-erotism, repetition, contradiction and drive conflicts.

Groups of drug addicts were contacted and asked to produce a drawing that showed how they were made inside their bodies. The first group included 24 adolescents and young adults, males and females, treated in residential setting in San Severino Marche; the second group included 56 subjects, male and females, treated in residential settings in the surroundings of Bari.

The purpose of the study was to analyse the graphic representations of the inside of the body of subjects with drug addiction problems and to confront their productions with those of children and adolescents without drug addiction problems, in order to examine whether, to what extent, and according to what qualitative criteria, the drawings of these populations would differ.

The results of the analysis of drug addict subjects' drawings evidentiate a range of graphic productions that correspond to two main and distinct typologies:

a) a first type of drawings, that are variable in quality and precision, in which subjects represent the inside of the body with reference to anatomical reality and knowledge. Such drawings appear not to be excessively different from those of children and adolescents without drug addiction problems;

b) a second type of drawings in which the instruction to draw the inside of the body apparently functions, for drug addict subjects, as a stimulus to "project" and express in their drawing, part of their internal mental world. In this case recurrent themes and contents appear in drug addict's drawings as for instance: elements that express destruction and aggressivity as thunderstorms, lightings, bombings, volcanoes, atomic stations etc...; or bipolarism, conflicts, fights, opposition, between positive and negative forces or elements, as between the day and the night, an angel and a devil, flowers under a black sun etc...; or, another frequent element is the presence of robots or mechanical men.

In the whole, these contents appear as significant illustrations of the problems related to body experience of drug addict subjects pointed out by clinical and psychoanalytical literature.

Merete Amann Gainotti, Angela Mongelli, Agata Marzano: "Drug addiction and images within adolescents and young adults' body". Paper presented at the First International Congress of Adolescentology, Assisi, Italy, October 22-24, 1993.

Key Words: Drug Addiction, Internal Body Image, Adolescence

Merete Amann Gainotti: prof. associato di Psicologia dello Sviluppo, Terza Università di Roma, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Educazione.

Angela Mongelli: Ricercatore confermato, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Educazione - Università di Bari

Agata Marzano: Laureata in Pedagogia, collaboratrice presso la Cattedra di Psicologia Sociale, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Educazione - Università di Bari