Preface of Treatment Doesn't Work

It seems that we, meaning the drug and alcohol treatment industry and Baldwin Research, are caught up in a classic Kuhnian paradigm shift. We do not believe our separation with the treatment industry is as simple as a “not invented here syndrome.” We believe we are at a point where two well-intended sciences are colliding. Certainly dedicated people in the treatment industry remain convinced that the programs conducted by them are helping many people. However, prior to every paradigmatic shift the existing paradigm ignores the new approach and challenges the incoming paradigm. The reason for the old paradigm to resist is prophetically presented in Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . He writes, ”No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomenon; indeed those that will not fit in the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others. 1 Instead, normal-scientific research is directed to articulation of those phenomena and theories that the paradigm already supplies.” ( 1 Bernard Barber, Resistance by Scientists to Scientific Discovery , Science, CXXXIV, 596-602)

To be sure, we have jointly, and needlessly, taken a path that forces Baldwin Research into conflict with the treatment industry—one of us right, one of us wrong—one of us wins, one of us loses. I am certain the absurdity of the situation has not gone unnoticed by many in the industry. We are both working to help people recover from drug and alcohol problems; how much more effective would it be if the treatment industry and Baldwin Research were to join forces. Baldwin Research’s staff is sufficiently “out-of-the-box” to research and develop, without prejudice, new technologies for the treatment of drug and alcohol problems. Many organizations in the treatment industry have the financial wherewithal to conduct that research. But these organizations lack the independence necessary to be true to the research and not to the existing paradigm, a paradigm that has been proven not to work.

Historically, the treatment industry and government agencies have spent billions of dollars in research. Tragically, the research has not been to find the most effective treatment for alcohol and drug problems, but to prove that the methods that are currently being used are effective. This phenomenon is exactly what Kuhn observed in all other sciences. That is: the current science (methods) can be studied and refined but cannot be replaced. Thus, when new studies prove the current methods ineffective and challenge the established paradigm with more effective and innovative methods, the established paradigm must protect its existence by rejecting the “new,” setting aside facts, logic and truth. This, then, is the environment, into which our conclusive research that “treatment doesn’t work,” and our new methods must compete. Nevertheless, the compelling truth is simply this: existing paradigms always yield to new paradigms. This is true because it is the nature of things.

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Copyright 1998 Baldwin Research Institute, Inc.