Inaugural Professorial Lecture with Professor Jonathan Chick

Start date and time

Wednesday 11 January 2017

Location

18.00 hours Lecture theatre 1D5 at Sighthill Campus

Our view of addiction shapes the help we offer.
While Finnish addiction therapists tend to see drinking to excess as intentional, French specialists tend to emphasise the addictive power of alcohol. Professor Chick reflects on 40 years in alcohol research and treatment. Alcohol remains our drug of choice in Scotland. But for some, the freedom to choose lessens. How to bolster their resolve? Can a non-judgemental dialogue nudge their decision-making, or had the brain been altered as burgeoning neuropharmacological research claims?

Would-be helpers can feel overwhelmed by the emotional and social distress displayed but what are the causes and what are the effects of the addiction. Evidence is available that shows pathways out of these webs of distress but, to give one disappointing example, doctors' antidepressants or tranquillisers are seldom the solution.
When patients’ and therapists’ views on causes and solutions differ, ‘denial’ is sometimes invoked. The Lecture will attempt to disentangle that notion, while showing that recovery from alcohol problems means attending to ‘the illness’ as well as the symptoms.

Professor Jonathan Chick joined Castle Craig Hospital in 2014 as the new medical director. Professor Chick is an eminent consultant psychiatrist with a distinguished career in the National Health Service.




Professor Chick was a leading researcher in the addiction field for a number of years and has been published extensively in peer-reviewed journals. He is currently the chief editor of Alcohol and Alcoholism, which is the official journal of the Medical Council on Alcohol. Professor Chick is an elected member of the scientific council of the Societe Francaise d'Alcoologie and is a member of the board of trustees of the General Services Office of Alcoholics Anonymous in the UK.

Doors open at 5.30pm / Lecture begins at 6pm followed by a Q&A

A reception will follow at 7pm