astronomy

G. Alan Marlatt

G. Alan Marlatt is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand G. Alan Marlatt rather than just read about it. In short: Gordon Alan Marlatt (November 26, 1941 – March 14, 2011) was a leading American-Canadian clinical psychologist in the field of addictive behaviors from the 1980s through the 2000s. He conducted pioneering research in harm reduction, brief interventions, and relapse prevention.

Key takeaways

G. Alan Marlatt belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect G. Alan Marlatt to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of G. Alan Marlatt from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Gordon Alan Marlatt (November 26, 1941 – March 14, 2011) was a leading American-Canadian clinical psychologist in the field of addictive behaviors from the 1980s through the 2000s. He conducted pioneering research in harm reduction, brief interventions, and relapse prevention.

Biography Marlatt was born in 1941 in Vancouver, Canada, to Vera Whitehead and Sholto Marlatt (a Royal Canadian Air Force flight officer who died in 1942). Marlatt received his bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of British Columbia in 1964, and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana University in 1968.

Career After serving on the faculties of the University of British Columbia (1968–1969) and the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1969–1972), he joined the University of Washington faculty in the fall of 1972. He eventually became a professor of psychology and director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at that institution. He conducted pioneering research in three areas: harm reduction, brief interventions, and relapse prevention. In 1996, Marlatt was appointed as a member of the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). He served as the president of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors from 1983 to 1984; president of the Section for the Development of Clinical Psychology as an Experimental-Behavioral Science of the Society of Clinical Psychology (Division 12 of the American Psychological Association), 1985–1986; and president of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, 1991–1992. Marlatt's books include Alcoholism: New Directions in Behavioral Research and Treatment (1978), Relapse Prevention: Maintenance strategies in the treatment of addictive behaviors (1985, 2005), Assessment of Addictive Behaviors (1985; 2005), Addictive Behaviors Across the Lifespan (1993), Harm Reduction: Pragmatic Strategies for Managing High-Risk Behaviors (1998), Changing Addictive Behavior (co-authored with Dennis M. Donovan and Jalie Tucker) (1999), and Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students (BASICS) Manual (1999), The Tao of Sobriety: Helping You to Recover from Alcohol and Drug Addiction (Forward) (2002), and Therapist's Guide to Evidence-Based Relapse Prevention (2007). In addition, he published over 200 book chapters and journal articles and served on the editorial boards of numerous professional journals, including the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Addictive Behaviors, and Journal of Studies on Alcohol. Marlatt received continuous funding for his research from a variety of agencies including the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the ABMRF/The Foundation for Alcohol Research, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In 1990, Marlatt was awarded The Jellinek Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to knowledge in the field of alcohol studies from the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism. In 2001, he was given the Innovators in Combating Substance Abuse Award by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and in 2004 he received the Distinguished Researcher Award from the Research Society on Alcoholism. He received the Distinguished Psychologist award for Professional Contribution to Knowledge from the Washington State Psychological Association in 1990 and the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology in 2000.

Urge Surfing Marlatt popularized the concept of "urge surfing" as a coping mechanism for addiction. The strategy involves picturing addictive urges as physical waves that rise in intensity, peak, and eventually crash and subside.

Personal life Marlatt was married four times. He married his fourth wife, Kitty Moore, in Seattle on July 18, 2010. He had one son and three stepchildren. Marlatt died on March 11, 2011, of kidney failure in Warm Beach, Washington.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with G. Alan Marlatt

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what G. Alan Marlatt claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to G. Alan Marlatt before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about G. Alan Marlatt ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of G. Alan Marlatt

In research: G. Alan Marlatt appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses G. Alan Marlatt in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: G. Alan Marlatt is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1941 births, 2011 deaths, 20th-century American psychologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for G. Alan Marlatt outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study G. Alan Marlatt in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what G. Alan Marlatt means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain G. Alan Marlatt out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is G. Alan Marlatt in simple terms?

Why does G. Alan Marlatt matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study G. Alan Marlatt?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on G. Alan Marlatt.