Nick Heather – författare

Selected specifically for health and other professionals, who need to provide effective responses in their work, these authoritative, science-based reviews are a distillation of the more practical elements, designed to save time for the busy practitioner.

This ground-breaking book advances the fundamental debate about the nature of addiction. As well as presenting the case for seeing addiction as a brain disease, it brings together all the most cogent and penetrating critiques of the brain disease model of addiction (BDMA) and the main grounds for being skeptical of BDMA claims.

The idea that addiction is a brain disease dominates thinking and practice worldwide. However, the editors of this book argue that our understanding of addiction is undergoing a revolutionary change, from being considered a brain disease to a disorder of voluntary behavior. The resolution of this controversy will determine the future of scientific progress in understanding addiction, together with necessary advances in treatment, prevention, and societal responses to addictive disorders. This volume brings together the various strands of the contemporary debate about whether or not addiction is best regarded as a brain disease. Contributors offer arguments for and against, and reasons for uncertainty; they also propose novel alternatives to both brain disease and moral models of addiction. In addition to reprints of classic articles from the addiction research literature, each section contains original chapters written by authorities on their chosen topic. The editors have assembled a stellar cast of chapter authors from a wide range of disciplines – neuroscience, philosophy, psychiatry, psychology, cognitive science, sociology, and law – including some of the most brilliant and influential voices in the field of addiction studies today.

The result is a landmark volume in the study of addiction which will be essential reading for advanced students and researchers in addiction as well as professionals such as medical practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists of all varieties, and social workers.

This ground-breaking book advances the fundamental debate about the nature of addiction. As well as presenting the case for seeing addiction as a brain disease, it brings together all the most cogent and penetrating critiques of the brain disease model of addiction (BDMA) and the main grounds for being skeptical of BDMA claims.

The idea that addiction is a brain disease dominates thinking and practice worldwide. However, the editors of this book argue that our understanding of addiction is undergoing a revolutionary change, from being considered a brain disease to a disorder of voluntary behavior. The resolution of this controversy will determine the future of scientific progress in understanding addiction, together with necessary advances in treatment, prevention, and societal responses to addictive disorders. This volume brings together the various strands of the contemporary debate about whether or not addiction is best regarded as a brain disease. Contributors offer arguments for and against, and reasons for uncertainty; they also propose novel alternatives to both brain disease and moral models of addiction. In addition to reprints of classic articles from the addiction research literature, each section contains original chapters written by authorities on their chosen topic. The editors have assembled a stellar cast of chapter authors from a wide range of disciplines – neuroscience, philosophy, psychiatry, psychology, cognitive science, sociology, and law – including some of the most brilliant and influential voices in the field of addiction studies today.

The result is a landmark volume in the study of addiction which will be essential reading for advanced students and researchers in addiction as well as professionals such as medical practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists of all varieties, and social workers.

In the 1980s the study of alcoholism was in a period of rapid change, this book, originally published in 1985, identifies and explores the three most controversial contemporary issues: changes at the basic explanatory level in our concept of harmful drinking; the undermining of our confidence that drinking behaviour can be effectively modified in the traditional context of ‘treatment’; and the changes in our concept of the effective prevention of harmful drinking.

The authors of the book came from a variety of backgrounds, but all were members of the New Directions in the Study of Alcohol Group. They broadly reject the disease concept of alcoholism, but, as this volume shows, there is still scope for vigorous debate and this book should have something of interest for all concerned with problems of alcoholism.

Originally published in 1981 and revised in 1983, Controlled Drinking was the first scholarly review of the literature on a controversial but increasingly practiced approach to the treatment of alcoholism. Nick Heather and Ian Robertson analyse all the pertinent questions that controlled drinking raises, starting with the need to examine the ‘disease conception’ of alcoholism and ‘total abstinence’ treatment. They look at the evidence indicating that some people, previously diagnosed as alcoholics, are able to return to normal, controlled patterns of drinking, and discuss therapies where controlled drinking is the treatment goal, fully reviewing the evidence for their success and failure. Concluding with a discussion of the theoretical and policy implications of controlled drinking, the authors recommend that the disease view of alcoholism be finally abandoned.

For the revised paperback edition, as well as correcting and updating the text and references, the authors included an important postscript on the charges of falsification of evidence and their subsequent refutation which made up the Sobell affair. The wealth of other material presented in Controlled Drinking supports the authors’ conclusions even if the Sobells’ work were ignored. However, this revised edition was made more useful for student and professional readers by the postscript’s discussion of the controversy surrounding the most widely known and quoted controlled drinking trial at the time.

In the 1980s the study of alcoholism was in a period of rapid change, this book, originally published in 1985, identifies and explores the three most controversial contemporary issues: changes at the basic explanatory level in our concept of harmful drinking; the undermining of our confidence that drinking behaviour can be effectively modified in the traditional context of ‘treatment’; and the changes in our concept of the effective prevention of harmful drinking.

The authors of the book came from a variety of backgrounds, but all were members of the New Directions in the Study of Alcohol Group. They broadly reject the disease concept of alcoholism, but, as this volume shows, there is still scope for vigorous debate and this book should have something of interest for all concerned with problems of alcoholism.

Originally published in 1981 and revised in 1983, Controlled Drinking was the first scholarly review of the literature on a controversial but increasingly practiced approach to the treatment of alcoholism. Nick Heather and Ian Robertson analyse all the pertinent questions that controlled drinking raises, starting with the need to examine the ‘disease conception’ of alcoholism and ‘total abstinence’ treatment. They look at the evidence indicating that some people, previously diagnosed as alcoholics, are able to return to normal, controlled patterns of drinking, and discuss therapies where controlled drinking is the treatment goal, fully reviewing the evidence for their success and failure. Concluding with a discussion of the theoretical and policy implications of controlled drinking, the authors recommend that the disease view of alcoholism be finally abandoned.

For the revised paperback edition, as well as correcting and updating the text and references, the authors included an important postscript on the charges of falsification of evidence and their subsequent refutation which made up the Sobell affair. The wealth of other material presented in Controlled Drinking supports the authors’ conclusions even if the Sobells’ work were ignored. However, this revised edition was made more useful for student and professional readers by the postscript’s discussion of the controversy surrounding the most widely known and quoted controlled drinking trial at the time.