DR. Powdermaker Discusses the Role of a Psychiatrist in Alcoholics Anonymous

There is no need to tell the readers of this journal that the chronic alcoholic presents a difficult problem. That problem is just as difficult for the psychiatrist to understand and solve as for anyone else. You may say that it ought not to be, since he is presumably an expert in the kinds of behavior that make people unhappy and sick. He should know the way to help people make a healthy adjustment to life. Many of you have gone to a psychiatrist or another doctor with just this idea. Then when he failed, as he usually did, you threw up your hands, sometimes in sorrow, sometimes in anger, often in resentment that grew out of your disappointment, and very often with the feeling, "Well, he can't help me, no one can; there is nothing to do but keep on drinking." And then you felt worse when you thought how much liquor could have been bought with the money you spent on the psychiatrist.