Archie Brodsky

In Love and Addiction, published 40 years ago and sold as a mass-market paperback on love, Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky laid out every major issue confronting the addiction field today. This pioneering classic, which was excerpted in Cosmopolitan and spawned the codependence movement, is the first-and still the definitive-book on addictive love. But it is much more than that; it is the book that explains why addiction is not what we think it is. Love and Addiction focuses on dependent love relationships to explore what both love and addiction really are-psychologically, socially, and culturally. Addiction is an overgrown, dependent, destructive relationship. Love is the opposite, a sharing, growth-inspiring one. The authors' analysis makes clear that an addiction is an experience that takes on meaning and power in light of a person's needs, desires, beliefs, expectations, and fears. By showing how addiction grows out of ordinary human experience, Peele and Brodsky offer a liberating understanding of all addictions-to alcohol, drugs, tobacco, food, gambling, shopping, electronic media, sex, or love. In 1975, Love and Addiction boldly proposed ideas whose truth is only now being recognized: Addiction is not limited to drugs, and drugs are not necessarily addictive. AA's 12 steps are not the last word in addiction treatment. On the contrary, practically oriented addiction treatments are more effective. The goal of addiction treatment and recovery is not abstinence to the exclusion of all else, but to build a life that rules out addiction. Love is the opposite of the self-protective constriction of addiction; it is the expansion of your spirit with another human being. Remarkably, all of these issues-the widespread application of the addiction diagnosis, the limited value of AA and its disease theory, the possibility that people can continue using but still eliminate addiction (harm reduction)-are as hotly debated today as when Peele and Brodsky first analyzed addiction forty years ago. Most remarkably of all, the answers Peele and Brodsky arrived at in Love and Addiction are only now being embraced by progressive thinkers in the field. "Destined to become a classic " Psychology Today proclaimed in 1975. Rereading Love and Addiction 35 years later, addiction researcher Rowdy Yates wrote that the book "still reads absolutely true as an understanding of addictive behavior." Reading today this clairvoyant analysis of the most challenging issues we face in the twenty-first century-the meaning of love and the cure for addiction-you will recognize both the current relevance and enduring value of Love and Addiction, now reissued with a new (2015) Authors' Preface, the Authors' Preface written for the 1991 paperback reissue, and a brief new introduction to each chapter. Otherwise, nothing has been changed in the original book.

This volume speaks directly to the issues that underlie sexual dynamics between clinicians and clients. Substantially updated and enlarged, this second edition addresses head-on the heightened openness and awareness of the contemporary consulting room.

What do you do when you run into a patient in a public place? How do you respond when a patient suddenly hugs you at the end of a session? Do you accept a gift that a patient brings to make up for causing you some inconvenience? Questions like these—which virtually all clinicians face at one time or another—have serious clinical, ethical, and legal implications. This authoritative, practical book uses compelling case vignettes to show how a wide range of boundary questions arise and can be responsibly resolved as part of the process of therapy. Coverage includes role reversal, gifts, self-disclosure, out-of-office encounters, physical contact, and sexual misconduct. Strategies for preventing boundary violations and managing associated legal risks are highlighted.

In an era of managed care, the newly diagnosed patient with diabetes goes home to face daily questions about how to cope with the disease. This extensively revised edition of a guide that has become truly indispensable covers all such questions: adjusting to the emotional impact of diabetes making decisions about diet, exercise, types of medication, and new technology finding the best care and facing the uncertainty surrounding complications and their effect on marriage and family, sex, and career choice. A new resource section and up-to-date information on new research and improved self-management make this helpful and understanding book more essential than ever.

This volume speaks directly to the issues that underlie sexual dynamics between clinicians and clients. Substantially updated and enlarged, this second edition addresses head-on the heightened openness and awareness of the contemporary consulting room.

It doesn't have to hurt to be in love, yet for many otherwise accomplished and confident people, romantic involvement means anxiety, insecurity, and pain. This provocative and authoritative sourcebook, filled with true-life stories and dramatic case histories, will set every reader on a path of greater self-understanding -- and increase the possibilities of finding an enduring love.