Introduction to “Visions of Addiction”: The Nature of the Beast

Abstract

Addiction is viewed from a range of perspectives that often seem incompatible and perhaps incommensurable. This volume presents the major visions of addiction in contemporary science and therapy, including cognitive-behavior, medical-disease, adaptive, genetic, neurobehavioral, social, learning, ego-analytic, and moral models of addiction. Although we must examine the bases of these diverse visions in order to make sense of the welter of conflicting views of addiction, it is not necessary to surrender to nihilism or relativism in response to their diversity and contradictoriness.