Disclaimer: nothing in this content should be taken or held as clinical instruction, clinical supervision, or advisory concerning patient care.
Recently, I was asked if I had heard some comments about, “Almost everything you think you know about addiction being wrong…”, and what I thought about those comments.
From that, my guess was that the content being referred to was the Johann Hari talk about the “Rat Park” experiment (you can easily find it on YouTube). Rather than reply by getting technical, or naming the study, or the researcher, or by saying “Rat Park”, I summarized the main points from the talk as I remembered them – and asked if that was the one. It was.
To help dissect the topic raised by this area of interest, and seat it in a larger context, I’ll cover the following areas of research/famous research papers, in order:
- Part 1: The original Rat Park study (Alexander, et. al.)
- Part 2: Vietnam veterans returning home (Robbins, et. al.)
- Part 3: Colony collapse in a mouse utopia (Calhoun)
The attached document reflects the current state of my thinking about this material.
Recovery Review 