Peck was enjoying a brisk private practice in Connecticut when he wrote The Road Less Traveled (1978). It reportedly sold more than 10 million copies, was translated into 20 languages, spent eight years on the New York Times bestsellers list and launched a franchise of books, including Further Along the Road Less Traveled (1993) and The Road Less Traveled and Beyond (1997).
With a compassionate narrative style, Peck's books emphasized personal responsibility and self-discipline. ''Life is difficult,'' he wrote in the opening line of The Road Less Traveled, moving on to address themes he labeled discipline, love, growth and religion, and grace.
Though he said one publisher dismissed it as ''too Christ-y,'' The Road Less Traveled was credited with boosting the publishing industry's interest in self-help texts, especially those with a spiritual flavoring. Peck was sometimes regarded as the modern father of the genre, but he had trouble with those who called him a prophet, which many of his followers did.
Peck became one of the best-known psychiatrists, speakers and spiritual teachers of his generation, even if some in his field came to frown on his meshing of mental health and spirituality.
Raised in a secular home, his own religious track ranged from Zen Buddhist (at 18) to a flirtation with Jewish and Muslim mysticism (in his thirties) and Christianity (at 43).
With his first book, he became rich and famous. He held workshops and lectures on such subjects as ''Self-Love Versus Self-Esteem'' and ''Sexuality & Spirituality: Kissing Cousins.''
He said he was repulsed and pleased by some of the cult aspects that formed around him. ''Half the time when people want to touch my robe,'' he once told Life magazine, ''it feels incredibly icky - yuck!'' The rest of the time, ''it feels very good, honest, right.''
He described himself as a flawed man who had a weakness for cheap gin, marijuana and women. He wrote openly of his extramarital affairs in what he called his favorite book, In Search of Stones (1995).
