About Us, About the Site

About Us

Kenneth Peiser, Ph.D. and Martin Sandry, Ph.D. are licensed clinical psychologists living and working in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Each of us has about 40 years of clinical practice experience. We have taught at numerous educational facilities, including undergraduate and graduate courses at:

• Columbia University (New York)
  
• University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
• Illinois Institute of Technology
  
• University of Illinois
  
• Northeastern University
  
• Columbia College
  
• Chicago Institute for Rational Living
  
• Illinois School of Professional Psychology
  
• Loyola University

We have done research in psychological test development, response-bias in psychological testing, physiological psychology, anxiety and tremor in spinal cord injured patients, the dimensions of memory in stroke patients, body-image psychology of physically disabled children, personality characteristics of drug addicts and of successful contact lens wearers, personnel selection, effectiveness of rehabilitation of the hard-core unemployed, effectiveness of group meetings for stroke victims and their spouses, epidemiological studies of mental illness in the State of Illinois, stress management, predictions of academic success, therapeutic interventions for college underachievement, and predictions of success versus relapse for drug addicts.

We were both trained in Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy directly by Albert Ellis, Ph.D., founder of the Cognitive Behavior school of thought which predominates psychotherapy today. As clinicians, we have worked in a variety of settings including private practice, drug rehabilitation facilities, community mental health centers, hospital-based mental health facilities (inpatient and outpatient), physical rehabilitation facilities for children and adults, and nursing homes. Thus, we have worked with patients/clients with a very wide range of problems. We have authored, together and separately, numerous articles in professional journals and popular magazines. Further, we have co-authored two books which are currently available worldwide: look for them at Amazon.com, b/n.com, Waldenbooks.com, the Compuserve Book Forum and many other sites, your local library, a bookstore, etc.

About the Site

These books are what stimulated us to create this site; we want to offer a helping hand to everyone following our recovery program who wants help or clarification of anything in either book. The newer one (Beat Your Addiction: A Complete Program for Overcoming Any Addiction), published in November, 2004, is the second edition of the first one (The Universal 12-Step Program: How to Overcome Any Addiction and Win), which was published in 2002. For the second edition, we wanted a title that was more descriptive and made sense while still being grammatically correct. We decided, after the first book was published, never to let someone else write the title of our work again: that is, when we can.

This was not one of those times! We don't know who authored the pre-publication front cover of the second book, but the titling was wrong. It was probably soon after we began working on the book when an image of the cover, which necessarily included what the unknown person guessed at what the title would be, was sent out to the usual recipients of information about new releases, including the internet booksellers, book stores, and catalog houses. Thus, all of them used the wrong title. Then, when the book got published, whomever did the final edit forgot to change the inside title page to match the title on the cover; which today, is still incorrect. Otherwise, we believe that the book is a truly great contribution to the field of addiction treatment.

Whatever really happened, many sites and catalogs are still showing the wrong title. Amazon.com, b/n.com, and several others have been corrected thanks to our publisher, although many many still have an incorrect subtitle . Strangely, though, the publisher's own bookstore still has the front cover and title page wrong! So to find the book on the net, do a search on Sandry, because there are too many prolific writers out there named Peiser. Simply disregard the four book series, The Circle of Magic, in which a leading character is named Sandry, so Sandry is in the title of all four books.


Important...Important...Important


Because of the wide range of our interests and experiences that we have had during our long careers as psychologists, we also want to use this site to do three more things:

1. To share our ideas on issues other than addiction.
   
   
2. To answer any questions you may have about psychological issues, general or personal. Note that we don't want to do psychotherapy here unless we believe that the response to your question would be of general interest or assistance to others, and we also don't want to write extensive answers to questions that would be of interest to only one or two persons.
   
   
3. To offer personal attention to those who desire psychological treatment or advice on a specific issue. This can be done in person at our offices in Chicago, or via telephone. To arrange for an appointment of either kind, call (312) 266-6046. As soon as we learn how to do so while meeting the criteria of the HIPAA Privacy rules, we will offer therapy online also.
   

The Purpose of Our Book is...

to help people who are addicted to anything change their addictive behavior(s). We have taken special care to accommodate those people, such as atheists and agnostics, who find that the traditional Twelve Step programs and meetings are unhelpful because of their religious basis. But the book is equally helpful to religious people who have no problem with the concept of higher power. This is not a book simply to be read; it is important to do the exercises because they are an integral part of the recovery program. In other words, this is a practical workbook rather than a feel good "inspirational" book. In addition, since we teach you how to apply the methods of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (see our post about REBT and the ABCDE Method) you, by doing the exercises, will learn to overcome more than just your addictive behaviors. It also teaches you some basic skills to help you cope with the realities of your everyday life.

The Covers of Our Book