Toward an Integral Model of Addiction: By Means of Integral Methodological Pluralism and Metatheoretical and Integrative Conceptual Framework

Abstract

This article introduces and briefly outlines some orienting generalizations of an integrally informed model of addiction. I argue that by applying Integral Theory as a meta-theoretical and transdisciplinary framework, we may be able to arrive at a comprehensive integrative model of addiction that honors all the existing single-factor etiopathogenic models as well as the integrative and dynamic models. In order to examine any part of reality, one must employ a particular methodology. Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP) acknowledges that there are at least eight methodological families we can use to study any phenomenon. In this article I use IMP to sketch the outline of a comprehensive and integrative model of addiction. I will explore some of the most dominant explanatory models and theories of addiction derived from the sociopsychological and biomedical sciences, and point out how each model’s theory is enacted by a particular methodology as represented by one or more of the eight zones of IMP. Finally I will propose that an Integral Model of Addiction has the potential to integrate all the existing evidence-based explanatory models of addiction into a truly integrative, coherent and comprehensive conceptual framework and meta-theory of addiction.

Keywords: addiction integral methodological pluralism, integral model, metatheory