Psychiatric drugging: Forty years of pseudo-science, self interest, and indifference to harm

Journal/Book: J Mind Behav. 1995; 16: PO Box 522, Village Station, New York, NY 10014. Inst Mind Behavior Inc. 421-470.

Abstract: The ''modern'' era of psychiatric drug treatment began with the introduction of chlorpromazine into the chaotic mental hospital setting in the 1950s as a new psychotropic agent for controlling excitement, agitation, and aggressivity. In that setting the urgency of management problems operated to shrink the complexity of the patient as a psyche-social being down to specific ''symptoms'' targeted for chemical subjugation. From this beginning - a chemically produced quieting or ''tranquilization'' - there emerged a revitalized psychiatric movement to expand the ''strictly medical'' understanding and treatment of psychological disturbance that acknowledges no limits. This state of affairs has achieved a position of dominance and respect in the mental health industry, based upon social forces operating within psychiatry as a profession and outside of psychiatry in the larger political-economic realm. The catastrophe of widespread and expanding medically-produced disease has failed to alarm psychiatry into taking stock of the determinants of the catastrophe - indeed the existence and magnitude of the tragedy is barely recognized within psychiatry. This conclusion is illustrated by detailed examination of the psychopharmacologic agents alprazolam (Xanax) and fluoxetine (Prozac).

Note: Review DH Jacobs, Ctr Study Psychiat & Psychol W, 528 4TH St, Encinitas, CA 92024 USA

Keyword(s): PANIC DISORDER; MULTICENTER TRIAL; BENZODIAZEPINE WITHDRAWAL; ANTIPSYCHOTIC-DRUGS; TARDIVE-DYSKINESIA; PSYCHOTROPIC-DRUGS; NEUROLEPTIC DRUGS; TERM TREATMENT; DSM-IV; ALPRAZOLAM

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