title: Griffith Edwards' rigorous sympathy with Alcoholics Anonymous.
abstract: Griffith Edwards made empirical contributions early in his career to the literature on Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), but the attitude he adopted towards AA and other peer-led mutual help initiatives constitutes an even more important legacy. Unlike many treatment professionals who dismissed the value of AA or were threatened by its non-professional approach, Edwards was consistently respectful of the organization. However, he never became an uncritical booster of AA or overgeneralized what could be learnt from it. Future scholarly and clinical endeavors concerning addiction-related mutual help initiatives will benefit by continuing Edwards' tradition of 'rigorous sympathy'.
authors.affiliation: Center for Innovation to Implementation, VA Palo Alto Health Care System (152-MPD), Menlo Park, CA, USA.|Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Humphreys
mesh_terms: D000436:Alcoholics Anonymous / Q000266:history*; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008131:London; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000266:history
keywords: Alcohol dependence; alcoholics anonymous; history; problem drinking; self-help group; treatment