Actress Debra Winger Joins Performance Highlighting Stigma of Addiction

WHO: Debra Winger, Academy Award-nominated actress, will join other professional actors for a dramatic reading as part of a panel discussion about addiction during the American Psychological Association’s 119th Annual Convention.Discussion leaders: Carlo C. DiClemente, PhD, psychologist and addictive behaviors expertDavid Shurtleff, PhD, acting deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse

WHAT: A dramatic reading of Act III of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey into Night” at the APA convention. Following the performance, a panel of psychologists will lead a discussion on addiction and audience members will be allowed to give their emotional and professional reactions to the production.

WHEN: Session 3316, Saturday, Aug. 6, 2:00 – 3:50 p.m., EDT

WHERE: Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C., Street Level, Room 146A

BACKGROUND: The presentation is part of the Addiction Performance Project, a National Institute of Drug Addiction continuing education program. The program offers health care providers the opportunity to help eliminate the stigma associated with addiction, and promote a healthy dialogue that fosters compassion, cooperation and understanding for patients living with this disease.

Winger will be reading the part of Mary Tyrone, who is addicted to morphine. Tyrone’s husband and sons suffer from alcoholism in the play, set in 1912.

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 154,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare.