When Peale came under heavy criticism from the mental health community for his controversial book "The Power of Positive Thinking" (1952), Blanton distanced himself from Peale and refused to publicly endorse the book. Blanton did not allow Peale to use his name in "The Power of Positive Thinking" and declined to defend Peale publicly when he came under criticism. As scholar Donald Meyer describes it: "Peale evidently imagined that he marched with Blanton in their joint labors in the Religio-psychiatric Institute. This was not exactly so." Meyer notes that Blanton's own book, "Love or Perish" (1956), "contrasted so distinctly at so many points with the Peale evangel" of "positive thinking" that these works had virtually nothing in common.