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M. (Morgan) Scott Peck, M.D. (born May 22, 1936)
is an United States|American psychiatrist and
author.

He was born in New York City. He graduated from
Friends_Seminary in 1954, after which he received
a Bachelor of Arts|B.A. from Harvard in 1958 and
an Doctor of Medicine|M.D. degree from Case
Western Reserve University in 1963. He married
Lily Ho in 1959. Dr. Peck has served in
administrative posts in the government during his
career as a psychiatrist. He has been the Medical
Director of the New Milford Hospital Mental Health
Clinic and a psychiatrist in private practice in
New Milford (town), Connecticut|New Milford,
Connecticut. His first and best-known book, The
Road Less Traveled, has sold more than seven
million copies.

Dr. Peck's works combine his experiences from his
private psychiatric practice with a distinctly
religious point of view. In one of his books,
People of the Lie, he wrote, "After many years of
vague identification with Buddhism|Buddhist and
Islam|Islamic mysticism, I ultimately made a firm
Christian commitment - signified by my
non-denominational baptism on the ninth of March
1980..."  One of his religious insights is that
people who are evil attack others rather than
facing their own failures.  His religious views
are criticized by some fundamentalist Christians
(for example, Debbie Dewart).

In 1984, Dr. Peck co-founded the Foundation for
Community Encouragement, a tax-exempt, nonprofit,
public educational foundation, whose stated
mission is "to teach the principles of community
to individuals and organizations."

==The Road Less Traveled==

The Road Less Traveled is Peck's best known work,
and the one that made his reputation. It is, in
short, a description of the attributes that make
for a happy and fulfilled human being, based
largely on his insights as a psychologist and a
person.

In the first section of the work Peck talks about
discipline, which he considers essential for
emotional, spiritual and psychological health, and
which he describes as "the means of spiritual
evolution".  The elements of discipline that make
for such health include the ability to delay
gratification, accepting responsibility for
oneself and one's actions, a dedication to reality
and an openness to challenge.

In the second section, Peck considers the nature
of love, which he considers the driving force
behind spiritual growth.  The section mainly
attacks a number of misconceptions about love: 
that it is about dependency, that true love is
"falling in love", that love is a feeling. 
Instead love is about cathexis, the extending of
one's ego boundaries to include another, and about
the spiritual nurturing of another.

The final section describes Graces —
phenomena which Peck says:
*nurture human life and spiritual growth
*are incompletely understood by scientific
thinking
*are commonplace among humanity
*originate outside conscious human will

He concludes that "the miracles described indicate
that our growth as human beings is being assisted
by a force other than our conscious will".

==Works==

* The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of
Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
(Simon & Schuster, 1978)
* People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human
Evil (Simon & Schuster, 1983)
* What Return Can I Make? Dimensions of the
Christian Experience(Simon & Schuster, 1985)
(republished by Harpers in 1995 under the new
title, Gifts For the Journey: Treasures of the
Christian Life)
* The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace
(Simon & Schuster, 1987)
* A Bed By the Window: A Novel of Mystery and
Redemption (Bantam, 1990)
* The Friendly Snowflake: A Fable of Faith, Love
and Family (Turner Publishing, Inc., 1992)
* A World Waiting To Be Born: Civility
Rediscovered (Bantam, 1993)
* Meditations From the Road (Simon & Schuster,
1993)
* Further Along the Road Less Traveled (Simon &
Schuster, 1993)
* In Search of Stones: A Pilgrimage of Faith,
Reason and Discovery (Hyperion 1995)
* In Heaven As On Earth: A Vision of the Afterlife
(Hyperion, 1996)
* The Road Less Traveled and Beyond: Spiritual
Growth in an Age of Anxiety (Simon & Schuster,
1997)
* Denial of the Soul: Spiritual and Medical
Perspectives in Euthanasia and Mortality (Harmony
Books (Crown), 1997)
* Golf and the Spirit: Lessons for the Journey
(Harmony Books, 1999)
* Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist's Personal
Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption
(Free Press - January 19, 2005)

== External links ==

* http://www.mscottpeck.com/index.html M. Scott
Peck home page
* http://www.fce-community.org/ Foundation for
Community Encouragement home page