For a long time, psychodynamic treatment of alcohol addiction was seen as ineffective, unnecessary, or ignoring the patient’s behavior related to alcohol drinking. This resistance seems to be gradually weakening; in the psychotherapeutic community there is a growing number of opinions about the need for a psychodynamic treatment of alcohol addiction. The article reviews classical psychodynamic conceptions of alcohol addiction, its genesis and clinical image of an addicted person. The concepts of Z. Freud, H. Krystal, H. Rosenfeld, L. Wurmser and H. Kohut are presented. Issues of fundamental significance for psychodynamic perception concentrate on the individual as well as perceive the abuse of psychoactive substances as a factor that is inseparable from the personality of the individual. From the point of view of these conceptions, it is considered that addiction is rooted in psychological pain which is alleviated through taking psychoactive substances. This, consequently, results in the fact that addiction becomes a means of repairing, controlling, adapting or treatment. It seems that psychodynamic concepts may constitute a useful addition to the cognitive-behavioural approaches or to those based on motivation reinforcement, which are methods of choice in addiction treatment in Poland.