Edward Khantzian was a professor of

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial psych ...

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

. Beginning in the 1970s, he developed a progressively more coherent and empirically-grounded

self-medication Self-medication is a human behavior in which an individual uses a substance or any exogenous influence to self-administer treatment for physical or psychological conditions: for example headaches or fatigue. The substances most widely used in se ...

hypothesis of

drug abuse Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is the use of a drug in amounts or by methods which are harmful to the individual or others. It is a form of substance-related disorder. Differing definitions of drug abuse are used in public health, ...

, which states that individuals use drugs in an attempt to self-medicate states of distress and suffering. Dr. Khantzian is a first generation Armenian-American born in Haverhill Massachusetts. His parents were born in Turkey, his father immigrated to the United States in 1912. Khantzian's mother survived the Armenian genocide that started in 1915, moving to the U.S. in the late 1920s. Edward Khantzian was born in 1935 and grew up in Haverhill, a shoe town, where both parents worked in the then flourishing shoe industry. Educated in local school systems, he began his university studies in the Evening Divisions of Merrimack College and Boston University, graduating from the latter in 1958. After working as a technical writer for Raytheon for one year, he commenced his medical training at Albany Medical College in 1959, and graduated in 1963. He completed an internship at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. Subsequently, he commenced his training in psychiatry at the Massachusetts Mental Health Mental Center, a Harvard Medical School-affiliated facility. He joined the staff and Harvard teaching faculty at Cambridge Hospital, where he worked for most of his career. He completed psychoanalytic training at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in 1973. Starting early in his career he became involved in multiple clinical and investigative studies of addiction, with an emphasis on pursuing a psychodynamic understanding of the psychological vulnerabilities that predispose to addictive disorders. Considered a pioneer in addiction studies, he gained recognition for his development of the self-medication hypothesis. He also developed modified psychodynamic individual and group treatments for alcohol and other drug dependent individuals, as well as exploring ingredients that seem to make 12-step programs effective. Khantzian is a founding member and past-president of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry. In 2016, the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society awarded Khantzian with their Lifetime Achievement Award.

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* American psychiatrists Harvard Medical School faculty Living people American people of Armenian descent People from Haverhill, Massachusetts Writers on addiction Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-psychiatrist-stub