Stanton Peele
Stanton Peele, Ph. D., J.D., (born January 8, 1946) is a licensed psychologist, attorney, practicing psychotherapist and the author of books and articles on the subject of alcoholism, addiction and addiction treatment.[1]
Publications
Peele is the author of nine books including, Love and Addiction (1975), 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.
Love and Addiction
Peele began his critique of standard notions of addiction when he published Love and Addiction (coauthored with Archie Brodsky).[2] According to Peele's experiential/environmental approach, addictions are negative patterns of behavior that result from an over-attachment 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. [3] The failure to do so is the exception rather than the rule, he argues.[4]
Views on alcoholism
Peele challenged the total abstinence method of dealing with addiction in a Psychology Today article which compared the Life Process Program with the disease model[5], he also argues against the views of Alan Leshner and others that addiction is a brain disease.[6]
Views on 12 Step Treatment
In a co-authored book, Resisting 12 step Coercion, Peele outlines his case against court mandated attendance of twelve-step drug and alcohol treatment programs. In his book, he argues that these treatment programs are useless and sometimes harmful, he presents research on alternative treatment options and accuses some addiction providers of routine violation of standard medical ethics.[7]
Acknowledgements
Peele won the 1994 Alfred R. Lindesmith Award for achievement in the Field of Scholarship from the Drug Policy Foundation, Washington, DC,[8] and the 1989 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.[9] Other acknowledgements have come in the The Creation of the Annual Stanton Peele Lecture, 1998, by the Addiction Studies Program, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia and a Lifetime Achievement Award, 2006, International Network on Personal Meaning, Vancouver.[10]
Criticism and funding
In a review of The Meaning of Addiction, Addiction researcher Dr Griffith Edwards described his ambivalence to Peele's work:
"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.[11]
The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), and the Wine Institute provided unrestricted grants to fund some of Peele's work.[12]
References
- ^ Curriculum Vitae Stanton Peele
- ^ Love and Addiction
- ^ Censorship in Science (site funded by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States)
- ^ Stanton Peele's Approach
- ^ Recovering from an All-or-Nothing Approach to Alcohol
- ^ Hungry for The Next Fix: Behind the relentless, misguided search for a medical cure for addiction
- ^ Peele, Stanton "Resisting 12 Step Coercion" Book Online : http://www.morerevealed.com/library/resist/
- ^ Alfred R. Lindesmith Award for Achievement in Scholarship, Drug Policy Foundation
- ^ Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies
- ^ Stanton Peele's Curriculum Vitae [1]
- ^ Griffith Edwards. The Meaning of Addiction (book review). British Journal of Addiction, Dec85, Vol. 80 Issue 4, p447-448.
- ^ Exploring Psychological Benefits Associated with Moderate Alcohol Use: A Necessary Corrective to Assessments of Drinking Outcomes?