A thought-provoking, industry-minded, and polarizing perspective on the neurocircuitry of human desire and compulsion.
An argument against classifying addiction as a chronic “brain disease.”
Armed with scientific data and plenty of case studies, developmental neuroscientist and former addict Lewis (Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines His Former Life on Drugs, 2012) enters the ongoing addiction nomenclature debate with an intellectually authoritative yet controversial declaration that substance and behavioral dependencies are swiftly and deeply learned via the “neural circuitry of desire.” The author blames the medical community for developing a disease-model juggernaut derived primarily from clinical data rather than biological and psychological research on brain changes and altered synapses. Lewis believes this conceptualization pegged the affliction as a disease instead of what he deems a “developmental cascade and a detrimental result of habitual behaviors.” As increasing numbers of medical communities have embraced the addiction model this way, he writes, treatment methodologies often become ineffective as well. Lewis further criticizes the Alcoholics Anonymous strategy and its emphasis on an addict’s ability to surrender to their “powerlessness” over a compulsion rather than promoting personal empowerment toward self-sustainability. Once past a somewhat overly clinical neuroscientific discussion on the brain’s plasticity, Lewis introduces biographical testimonies of Americans struggling with addiction that both humanize and reinforce his standpoint. Awash in the separate throes of heroin, methamphetamine, opiates, alcohol, and binge-eating compulsions, the cases are complemented with uplifting updates on their sobriety efforts, which the author prefers to call a “developmental journey” toward recovery. Lewis’ statement that addiction is “uncannily normal” likely stems from his experiences as a former narcotic addict who overcame a decadelong drug habit at age 30. While definite fodder for debate, the author remains firm in his belief that in order to fully process the addiction spectrum, we must “gaze directly at the point where experience and biology meet.”
A thought-provoking, industry-minded, and polarizing perspective on the neurocircuitry of human desire and compulsion.Pub Date: July 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61039-437-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
A lively work on a somewhat arcane topic, and an important prehistory of our environmentally conscious, biologically...
An engrossing, unusual social narrative, documenting the close ties between chemical weapons development and “peaceful” applications in insect warfare.
Russell’s debut views the predominantly military history of the world wars and the Cold War as a metaphor for similarly volatile technological developments in the private sector. He explores how, despite the horror of indiscriminate gas warfare promulgated by all sides in WWI (here termed “The Chemists’ War”), a clique of ambitious scientists and soldiers in the Chemical Warfare Service created an advocacy culture that portrayed the frightening new technology as safer and more humane than the era’s gruesome trench-war stalemates. Such “gas boosterism” was checked by Depression-era public hostility towards the “merchants of death,” and by FDR’s horror of chemical warfare, evident in his “no-first-use” policy. This altered the service’s priorities, towards development of incendiary devices such as napalm, flame throwers, and cluster bombs; ironically, this shift made Allied bombing of German and Japanese cities especially devastating, much more so than gas warfare would have been. The most ingenious element of Russell’s approach may be seen in his even-handed exploration of how chemical warfare science influenced the civilian pest-eradication industry. He unearths startling cultural histories, such as how the military need to combat typhus and malaria fed the American enthusiasm for DDT, how the imagery and language of insect extermination fused with conceptions of “total war” to inure soldiers to massive killing (particularly regarding the Japanese), and how postwar science exploited Nazi development of organophosphates (powerful insecticides related to nerve gasses) for great profits and terrifying new weapons. He concludes by addressing the Cold War–era unease epitomized by Eisenhower’s warnings about the “military-industrial complex” and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), seeing both as warnings that an “elite class [had] lost sight of what they were ostensibly trying to protect” through endorsement of chemical warfare’s many forms.
A lively work on a somewhat arcane topic, and an important prehistory of our environmentally conscious, biologically threatened era.Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-521-79003-4
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Cambridge Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
A dull examination of the idea that a certain set of symptoms commonly afflicts ambitious, talented young women growing up in societies that value males over females. Authors Silverstein (Psychology/CCNY; Fed Up, not reviewed) and Perlick (Psychology/Cornell Medical College) assert that they find evidence of this syndrome—which they dub ``anxious somatic depression''—in medical writings going back to the fourth century b.c.; in recent writings of anthropologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists; and in the biographies, correspondence, and diaries of some 40 prominent women (e.g., Queen Elizabeth I, Charlotte Brontâ, Indira Gandhi). In addition, they distributed questionnaires and psychological tests to some 2,000 young women whose responses confirmed their findings. They cite evidence that women seeking to achieve in areas traditionally reserved for men pay a heavy price: depression, anxiety, disordered eating, headaches, and other somatic and psychological symptoms. These first appear in adolescent girls who chafe under the societal limits placed on them as females and who are ambivalent toward their femininity, especially those growing up in a period of great change in women's roles and those with traditional mothers. In other times, the disorder was recognized as hysteria or neurasthenia, but today, the authors assert, it frequently goes undetected by physicians and therapists. Silverstein and Perlick's aim is to make the syndrome known so that it will be recognized and treated. Preventing it, they note, would require changing society so that women's ambitions are given equal opportunity and their roles equal respect. Although the authors have consigned some of their research data and discussions of methodology to appendixes in an attempt to make their writing accessible to the general reader, the effort largely fails. Professional colleagues may persevere, but the stilted, redundant prose may well discourage those less dedicated. (charts and diagrams)
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-506986-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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