The 'Brain Disease' Concept in Addiction: A Cause for Ambivalence, Not Concern

摘要

Hammer and colleagues (2013) present some interesting empirical work on addicted persons' understanding of neurobiological research on addiction. They use their findings to argue that it may be "harmful" to describe addiction as a "brain disease." Empirical research of this type is important because we lack good information on the way in which addicted individuals incorporate neurobiological information into their self-understandings. While we agree with a number of their arguments, our own empirical research suggests that their concerns about the harms of the brain disease language are overstated.