Pathological Gambling

The Making of a Medical Problem

By Brian Castellani

Subjects: Medical Sociology
Paperback : 9780791445228, 230 pages, March 2000
Hardcover : 9780791445211, 230 pages, March 2000

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Table of contents

Acknowledgments

PART I

Introduction

A Note on Strategy: Assemblage and Discursive Negotiations

PART II

1. The Birth of Gambling as a Medical Object of Investigation

2. The Trial of John Torniero

3. Constructing the Gambling Subject: Views from within the Medical Model

4. The Defense's Argument

5. In-patient Treatment

6. Gamblers Anonymous and the Gambling Councils

7. The Prosecution's Argument

8. The Gambling Industry

9. Government

10. Diagnosed Pathological Gamblers

11. The World of Inveterate Gamblers

12. The Family: A Group with No Discursive Voice

13. The Judge's Decision

PART III

14. Epilogue: Addressing the Problems of Pathological Gambling

Notes

References

Index

This first book on the history of gambling examines how it became a major social problem in the United States, and how it was made into a medical disorder.

Description

Although pathological gambling has been a field of study and treatment for over forty years, its story has remained unwritten. That is until now. Brian Castellani is the first to write a book on its history and its medicalization.

Although pathological gambling has been a field of study and treatment for over forty years, its story has remained unwritten. That is until now. Brian Castellani is the first to write a book on its history and its medicalization.

Brian Castellani is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.

Reviews

"Brian Castellani tells a fascinating story. He has a knack of weaving an interesting court case into the wider framework of the field of problem gambling. He intertwines the medical and legal issues together quite well. In the process he calls for a bio-psycho-social discursive framework as a corrective to the classical medical model. Advocates and opponents of the medical model would do well to heed his call. This book is a timely addition to the ongoing controversy that is pathological gambling."— Henry R. Lesieur, Ph.D., Institute for Problem Gambling and author of The Chase: The Compulsive Gambler