Drugs, Alcohol and Society with Schaler at American University, May 21 to June 28, 2007

Drugs, Alcohol and Society, Summer 2007
JLS-303-B01
American University
Instructor: Jeffrey Schaler
May 21, 2007 to June 28, 2007
Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 5:30pm to 8:40pm.

This is an intense, high-power course focused on everything you thought was true about addiction (but were afraid to ask). Study the synthetic and analytic truth about addiction. You'll learn all kinds of intellectual tools to win arguments with adversaries and "wow" your friends. Your life will change as a result of taking this course.

This is also an opportunity to study the ideas of Thomas Szasz, Jeff Schaler, and others (inaccurately labeled as "anti-psychiatrists") concerning the myth and meaning of addiction; the various explanations offered for addiction including theological, biological, psychological, and sociocultural explanations; and the various consequences of those explanations in diverse policy arenas including legal policy (First Amendment rights and court-ordered attendance in Alcoholics Anonymous and other forms of "treatment") as well as general consequences for liberty and responsibility; clinical policy (including the meaning of psychotherapy, different types of psychotherapy, similarities between psychotherapy and religion; why treatment doesn't work, etcetera); public policy (including various forms of formal social control, paternalism, how the state attempts to protect people from themselves in the name of public health and medicine; the consequences of drug prohibition, problems facing doctors in terms of prescribing opiates for pain control, etcetera); and various elements of social policy (the difference between formal and informal social control; conformity, compliance, and obedience to authority, etcetera.

For more information about summer courses with Professor Schaler, click HERE.

See past syllabi and evaluations by students of Schaler's teaching by clicking HERE.

Note: The Distance Education (DE) course with Schaler entitled "Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law" (JLS-596.N0XL) beginning May 14, 2007, is now full. If you registered for that course, you'll be sent the syllabus by email shortly. Blackboard will be enabled in the next couple of days.

Drugs, Alcohol and Society is the only other opportunity to take a course with Schaler this summer.