Marie Nyswander Robinson

Born in 1919, she became an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst known for challenging older ideas about addiction. Instead of treating heroin dependence as simply a moral failing, she argued that it should be understood and treated as a medical condition.

In the 1960s, she worked with Vincent Dole on the research that led to methadone maintenance treatment. Their clinical work helped establish some of the first sanctioned methadone programs, and their ideas shaped addiction treatment far beyond the United States.

She also wrote about addiction for both professional and general readers, helping bring a more humane and practical view of patients into public discussion. She died in 1986, but her influence remains central to the history of modern addiction medicine.