Dr. Norman Earl Zinberg (born 1922,

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in P ...

- d. April 2, 1989,

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most ...

) was a

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...

and

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their ...

whose research into

addiction Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use oft ...

is seen as a great influence on current clinical models and greatly influenced the work of

addiction treatment Drug rehabilitation is the process of medical or psychotherapeutic treatment for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and street drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, heroin or amphetamines. The general int ...

specialists such as Stanton Peele. He was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the

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

and a psychiatrist at Cambridge Hospital. He also taught at Boston University and the Tufts School of Medicine. Zinberg earned his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the University of Maryland. Zinberg studied recreational heroin users over a ten-year period, and his book ''Drug, Set, and Setting: The Basis for Controlled Intoxicant Use'' explains with data and case histories why people's relation to drug use could change according to type of drug (including its method of ingestion), their mindset, and social setting. One of his early studies in the area concerned a number of American soldiers who became addicted to heroin during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

as what Zinberg viewed as an attempt to "blot out" the intensity of their environment. Once back in the States, their usage "virtually ceased"; 88% of the soldiers did not become readdicted after returning stateside. His work contradicted the idea that some people have " addictive personalities" while other do not. Dr. Howard Shaffer, a colleague at Harvard and at

Cambridge Hospital Cambridge Hospital is a community teaching hospital located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of three hospitals that are parts of Cambridge Health Alliance. Services The main Cambridge Hospital campus has a wide variety of health services ...

, said about Zinberg "He had a remarkable impact on our understanding that drug effects are not simply a consequence of biochemistry. He showed that an individual's expectations, his psychological set and his social milieu interact to produce the effects on behavior that we observe. Equally important, Norman Zinberg helped us explain why an addictive drug affects a person differently at different times and how it affects various people in different ways." In addition to his addiction work, Zinberg was one of the first appointees to the National AIDS Commission. Norman Zinberg collaborated on some studies and books with his wife

Dorothy Zinberg Dorothy Shore Zinberg was an American scholar at Harvard Kennedy School and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Zinberg taught in the sociology department at Harvard and continued to lecture at the Kenned ...

References

External links

Norman Zinberg's lecture
on YouTube. {{DEFAULTSORT:Zinberg, Norman 1922 births 1989 deaths People from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania University System of Maryland alumni American psychiatrists American addiction physicians 20th-century American physicians American psychoanalysts Boston University faculty Tufts University School of Medicine faculty