All rights reserved © Gene Heyman |
|
Reviews and Interviews
|
|
Gene Heyman describes his course on addiction for Harvard University panel |
|
Journal of Economic Psychology. Book Review, Addiction: A disorder of choice, 2010, 31, 146-148. Don Ross. "Economists with any interest in behavioral phenomena should all read Heyman’s book." |
|
The Internet Review of Books: "Once an addict, always an addict?" "Addiction both begins and ends with a choice, Gene Heyman argues. Calling addiction “a choice” is bound to stir controversy; most people don’t want to blame a victim, even if he might be a victim of his own choices." |
|
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth interviews Gene Heyman "In a provocative new book Addiction: A Disorder of Choice psychologist Gene Heyman argues that addiction is not a disease, but a series of bad decisions. Heyman is a research psychologist at McLean Hospital and a lecturer in psychology at Harvard Medical School. Heyman presents evidence suggesting that addiction is a voluntary behavior instead of a disease. Gene Heyman joins us on the line to lay out his argument." |
|
The Globe and Mail review Addiction: A Disorder of Choice "The targets of this particular campaign were other “youth in low-income urban environments,” and the message to them was as much an inspiration as it was a reproach: If the kids in the poster could stay off drugs by finding better ways to spend their time, so could kids looking at the poster. This is, in many ways, the entire point of Gene Heyman's provocative and engaging new book. Addiction is a choice, one that competes with a myriad of other choices in our lives, and just as the road into it is about making the wrong choices, the road out of it is about making the right choices. Addicts are grasshoppers, always opting for the pleasure closest at hand, and the rest of us (by inference) are ants, opting for pleasures the rewards of which lie in the future. The difference is between short-term thinking and long-term thinking, or what experimental psychologists like Heyman call local choice and global choice." (From The Globe and Mail) |
|
NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook Interviews Gene Heyman "Everybody knows addiction — alcoholism, drug addiction — is a disease. Conventional wisdom and years of reports tell us so. Research psychologist Gene Heyman says no. Addiction, he says in a provocative new book, is a choice, or a series of choices. It is, he says, voluntary." (From On Point) |
|
Boston Globe Interview with Gene Heyman: Is Addiction a Choice? "FOR YEARS, THE enlightened - and widely held - view of addiction has been that it is a disease. Chronic drug abusers, for example, are physiologically compelled to continue their self-destructive behavior. They often have a genetic predisposition toward addiction, and their drug abuse results in biochemical changes in the body. Addicts need help if they are to be saved. But in a new book from Harvard University Press, the psychologist Gene M. Heyman says this conventional wisdom is wrong. “Addiction: a Disorder of Choice” makes the provocative argument that addiction is voluntary rather than compulsory, that addicts respond to incentives just like most other |
|
Southern California Public Radio’s Air Talk, interviews Gene Heyman "Addiction is a choice, not a compulsion beyond conscious control, according to Dr. Gene M. Heyman. In his new book 'Addiction: A Disorder of Choice,' Heyman argues that drug use, like many other life choices, is influenced by preferences and goals. He explores the motivation behind quitting and furthering drug use. Heyman maintains the decision making process behind using drugs is similar to how people make other life choices. Larry Mantle talks with guests and listeners about the nature of addiction." |
|
The Gaurdian Reviews Addiction: A Disorder of Choice "The consensus on addiction (to, say, heroin) is that it is a "disease" or "chronic illness" which compels drug-taking behaviour. But experimenters have successfully bribed addicts to stop using, and most heavy drug users spontaneously give up around their early 30s. There is some heredity to predisposition to addiction, but drug use varies enormously with social circumstance. So what is going on?" (From The Gaurdian) |
|
The Financial Times Reviews Addiction: A Disorder of Choice "The US Congress voted this week to let the Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco almost out of existence, but could not work up the nerve to ban it. The latest of America’s periodic bouts of prohibitionism is thus coming to an end in a typically ambivalent fashion. Authorities are split over whether people are moral agents, competent to make their own decisions about drugs, or helpless victims; and whether drug abuse is a choice or a disease." (From The Financial Times) |
|
Metapsychology Reviews Addiction: A Disorder of Choice "Gene Heyman's Addiction: A Disorder of Choice explores similar themes as Jeffrey Schaler's more didactic Addiction is a Choice (Open Court, 2000), and Herbert Fingarette's more philosophical Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease (University of California Press, 1988). Yet Heyman refers to neither of these books, making his own independent argument instead. Heyman's position is relatively nuanced, and is not an indictment of all current approaches to understanding addiction and its treatment. In an atmosphere where the main view of addiction is that it is very much a disease (see for example, the HBO Addiction series with many figures from government health agencies giving their opinions), his somewhat skeptical view which emphasizes how much it is a matter of individual lack of self-control and failure to take the long view of one's personal interests is likely to both cause controversy and be condemned by many in positions of authority in the mental health field. Indeed, various blogs are already buzzing with counterarguments and dismissals from those in the biological tradition, and a recent article in the Toronto Star quotes several highly placed psychologists and psychiatrists saying that Heyman has misunderstood the literature." (From Metapsychology Review) |
|
McLean's (Canada's Weekly News Magazine): "Addiction: New Research Suggests it's a Choice" "The idea that addiction is a disease is an article of faith in the study of drug and alcohol dependence, providing the foundation for much of the treatment and public policy related to addiction since the early 1900s. In a forthcoming book, psychologist Gene Heyman dismantles this time-honoured assumption, arguing that addiction is first and foremost governed by personal choice, and does not therefore fit clinical conceptions of behavioural illness. Heyman has done research on choice, cognition and drug use. He has done volunteer work at a methadone clinic and he currently teaches courses on addiction at Harvard University. In conversation with Maclean’s correspondent Charlie Gillis, he offers a model of decision-making that he says explains how addicts—from smokers to opiate users—can voluntarily engage in activities that lead to long-term misery." (From mcleans.ca) |
|
Naturalism.org: "Choosing Irrationality: A Review of Addiction: A Disorder of Choice" "Controversy about addiction over the last few decades has centered on the virtues and drawbacks of the disease model: Is addiction justly portrayed as akin to other mental illnesses such as depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and schizophrenia, and perhaps even physical illness? Or does the disease model conceal important dissimilarities to these conditions, and therefore compromise our efforts to treat and prevent addiction? The current consensus in the addictions establishment, for instance at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), strongly favors the disease model." (From Naturalism.org) |