Judith R. Gordon

Who they are

This site has verified Gordon's role from the library catalogue record of the book and from an encyclopaedia entry that attributes the abstinence violation effect to it. No affiliation has been verified, and none is given.

This page records only what the papers and their published records state. Biography beyond the cited work is not given here.

Key papers

Relapse Prevention: Maintenance Strategies in the Treatment of Addictive Behaviors (1985), edited with G. Alan Marlatt. Guilford Press. The book frames relapse as a process that can be interrupted, and describes the abstinence violation effect: the reaction to a single lapse, after a vow to abstain, that makes a full relapse more likely. An encyclopaedia entry by S. E. Collins and Witkiewitz splits that reaction into a cognitive part, explaining the slip with causes that feel internal, stable and uncontrollable, and an emotional part, guilt and shame.

Key ideas

The central idea is that a lapse and a relapse are different events, and that what a person concludes about the lapse shapes whether the second follows. Later research has refined the account: a 2012 study of smokers found that falling confidence predicted further lapses better than self-blame did. The distinction between a slip and a collapse remains the part of the model most useful outside addiction, in everyday goals such as budgets and diets.

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