Stanton Peele, Ph. D., J.D., (born January 8, 1946) is a licensed psychologist, attorney, practicing psychotherapist and the author of numerous books and articles on the subject of alcoholism, addiction and treatment. His contribution to the field of alcoholism has won him several awards including the 1994 Alfred R. Lindesmith Award for achievement in the Field of Scholarship, from the Drug Policy Foundation, Washington, DC[1] and in 1989 the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies Mark Keller Award for Alcohol Studies for his article "The limitations of control-of-supply models for explaining and preventing alcoholism and drug addiction," JSA, 48:61-77, 1987.[2]
Dr. Peele began his critique of standard notions of addiction when he published Love and Addiction (with Archie Brodsky) in 1975. According to Dr. Peele's experential/environmental approach, addictions are negative patterns of behavior that result from an overattachment people form to experiences generated from a range of involvements. Most people experience addiction to some degree at least for periods of time during their lives. He does not view addictions as medical problems but as "problems of life" that most people overcome. The failure to do so is the exception rather than the rule, he argues.[3]
Peele's belief that alcoholism and addictions are not biologically based diseases is in opposition to much research on the subject[4] and unaccepted by many in the alcoholism treatment, education, and prevention fields. Although most medical and psychological associations define alcoholism as a disease, there is significant controversy regarding this point outside the medical field.[5][6] One reviewer of The Meaning of Addiction described his ambivalence as follows:
"With these and other issues treated in cavalier fashion, with referencing highly incomplete and crucial work often ignored, one begins to feel that this is a book where polemic and scholarship have become inextricably and unhappily mixed. ... Peele is not only a psychologist of distinction, but someone who can make use of sociological and biological ideas. ... So there's the dilemma."
— Griffith Edwards, Review of The Meaning of Addiction.[7]
Peele written works have been published in Pschology Today. He has done an excellent critique on some of the research on the alchoholism. [8]. His view of alchol as a drug of choice has been adopted by the Adlerian Society and as well as others in the medical field.
Peele is the author of nine books including, in addition to Love and Addiction, The Meaning of Addiction (1985/1998), Diseasing of America (1989), The Truth about Addiction and Recovery (with Archie Brodsky and Mary Arnold, 1991), Resisting 12-Step Coercion (with Charles Bufe and Archie Brodsky, 2001), 7 Tools to Beat Addiction (2004), and Addiction-Proof Your Child (2007), as well as 200 professional publications. Peele has three children: Dana, Haley and Anna.
References
- ^ http://www.peele.net/aab/dpf.html
- ^ http://www.peele.net/aab/keller.html
- ^ http://www.peele.net/philosophy/index.html
- ^ Addiction Is a Brain Disease, and It Matters, Alan I. Leshner, et al., Science 278, 45 (1997)
- ^ Maltzman I Is alcoholism a disease? A critical review of a controversy Integr Physiol Behav Sci 1991 Jul-Sep;26(3):200-10
- ^ Levy MS The disease controversy and psychotherapy with alcoholics J Psychoactive Drugs 1992 Jul-Sep;24(3):251-6
- ^ Griffith Edwards. The Meaning of Addiction (book review). British Journal of Addiction, Dec85, Vol. 80 Issue 4, p447-448.
- ^ http://www.peele.net/lib/allornothing.html