truly enjoyed reading Doug Sellman's paper . These types of paper, which summarize the literature briefly and, even more importantly, review it critically, are needed, especially right now, as there are increasing numbers of scientific outlets for papers and it becomes increasingly difficult to gain an overview of the field—not only for young scholars, who have just entered the field, but also for 'old and wise' researchers who have been in the field for a long time. The paper is an eye-opener, not so much because of the discussed empirical evidence for the 10 important insights, but through the combination and order of the 10 things. It makes one think about where we stand and what the next endeavours should be.
However, the question is not whether or not I agree with Sellman on the selection of 10 most important 'things'. Such a list is driven by personal experience, expertise and motivations. In fact, I fully agree with many of his statements; for instance, the neuropsychological processes related to addictive behaviours such as cue-signalling and reactivity, that go outside conscious awareness, the recent trends in thinking about addiction as complex gene–environment interactions and the statement that addictive behaviours occur mainly with other psychiatric disorders—which has huge complications for studying treatment effects. I also agree with the relevance of scrutinizing treatment alliances, and the dynamic developmental interactions between therapist and patient, rather than testing differences exclusively between treatments.
Read Full Text (PDF)
_______________________________________
