Introducing addiction, behavioural change and social identity

The aim of this volume is to investigate how behavioural change (with a specific emphasis upon addiction behavioural change, e.g., recovery) may be actioned through the lens of the social identity approach (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher & Wetherill, 1987). Emergent voices have begun to utilise this approach to investigate the social and psychological processes that might be in operation when individuals seek health behaviour change through joining with similar others (see Best, 2014; Jetten, Haslam & Haslam, 2012; Kelly & White, 2011).This fresh perspective for positive health behaviour change in the field of addictive behaviours demonstrates how people gain resilience from joining others with similar goals through a process of subjective identification. As such, a distinct social identity that is positive in health outcomes (e.g., recovery identity) emerges as a distinct comparison to the prior social identity that has become corrosive and damaging (e.g., addiction identity). This volume considers such change as a long-term process, with individuals who have sought addiction behavioural change as the sample in most, but not all, of the examples cited. It also presents addiction recovery as a social movement where social change can take place creatively and has implications for giving individuals who seek behaviour change and for professional treatment providers, the chance to regain a sense of hope, by building bridges into new worlds that are sustainable.