Introduction 1. Strangers in a Strange Land 2. The Doctoring of Madness before Chlorpromazine 3. Explorations in a New World 4. Psychiatry outside the Walls 5. Twisted Thoughts and Twisted Molecules 6. Positive and Negative 7. The Sorcerer's Apprentice 8. Democracy Notes Acknowledgments Index
David Healy is one of the founding historians of psychopharmacology, first with his three-volume series of interviews with the first generation of psychopharmacologists, and secondly with his brilliant book, The Antidepressant Era. Now Healy crowns these achievements with this breathtakingly original and important history of the antipsychotics, psychiatry's flagship drugs. In their short lifespan they have revolutionalized psychiatry, converting it from a medical specialty based on psychotherapy to one based on biochemistry. Yet as Healy's analysis shows, commerce has been as influential as science in this transformation--perhaps more so. For its originality, readability, and wisdom, The Creation of Psychopharmacology is the most important contribution to the history of psychiatry since Ellenberger's The Discovery of the Unconscious. -- Edward Shorter, University of Toronto, author of A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac
David Healy is Reader in Psychological Medicine at North Wales Clinical School and a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology.
David Healy is one of the founding historians of
psychopharmacology, first with his three-volume series of
interviews with the first generation of psychopharmacologists, and
secondly with his brilliant book, The Antidepressant Era. Now Healy
crowns these achievements with this breathtakingly original and
important history of the antipsychotics, psychiatry's flagship
drugs. In their short lifespan they have revolutionalized
psychiatry, converting it from a medical specialty based on
psychotherapy to one based on biochemistry. Yet as Healy's analysis
shows, commerce has been as influential as science in this
transformation--perhaps more so. For its originality, readability,
and wisdom, The Creation of Psychopharmacology is the most
important contribution to the history of psychiatry since
Ellenberger's The Discovery of the Unconscious.
*Edward Shorter, University of Toronto, author of A History of
Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of
Prozac*
[T]his sweeping history of medicine used to treat mental illness
takes on the psychiatric and medical establishment...Healy does
groundbreaking work...The Creation of Psychopharmacology details
how psychiatric medication intersects with academic squabbles and
popular culture.
*Chronicle of Higher Education*
David Healy is a respected historian of psychiatry who has written
a book that should spark a major debate. He identifies current
trends towards the abandonment of independent research into
treatments for mental illness, the demand for Randomised Control
Trials as the only acceptable measure of whether a treatment works,
and the chilling control pharmaceutical companies now exert over
psychiatry...This is an important and thought-provoking
book...Healy's warning that, without a debate, we may be moving
into an era when cosmetic psychiatry will be the new liposuction is
worth heeding.
*The Independent*
This book is a good place to start if you want to get an overview
of the role of drugs in the treatment of mental illness...[Healy]
capture[s] an important current dilemma.
*Washington Times*
Psychiatrists and historians owe a debt to David Healy. Over the
years he has conducted interviews with all the leading figures in
psychopharmacology...Drawing on these interviews and his wide
reading of the scholarly literature, Healy has now constructed a
subtle and compelling narrative of the development of psychotropic
drugs...Healy ambitiously relates the emergence of drugs to the
wider culture and shows how the two have interacted...[He] has
written a highly stimulating and original book, which is brimful of
ideas and deserves to be read and debated throughout the
psychiatric community and beyond.
*British Journal of Psychiatry*
[N]o one has described it more thoroughly, or elucidated the
critical intersections between psychiatry and the pharmaceutical
industry more clearly.
*Contemporary Psychology*
David Healy is one of the founding historians of
psychopharmacology, first with his three-volume series of
interviews with the first generation of psychopharmacologists, and
secondly with his brilliant book, The Antidepressant Era.
Now Healy crowns these achievements with this breathtakingly
original and important history of the antipsychotics, psychiatry's
flagship drugs. In their short lifespan they have revolutionalized
psychiatry, converting it from a medical specialty based on
psychotherapy to one based on biochemistry. Yet as Healy's analysis
shows, commerce has been as influential as science in this
transformation--perhaps more so. For its originality, readability,
and wisdom, The Creation of Psychopharmacology is the most
important contribution to the history of psychiatry since
Ellenberger's The Discovery of the Unconscious. -- Edward
Shorter, University of Toronto, author of A History of
Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac
[T]his sweeping history of medicine used to treat mental illness
takes on the psychiatric and medical establishment...Healy does
groundbreaking work...The Creation of Psychopharmacology
details how psychiatric medication intersects with academic
squabbles and popular culture. -- Janice Paskey * Chronicle of
Higher Education *
David Healy is a respected historian of psychiatry who has written
a book that should spark a major debate. He identifies current
trends towards the abandonment of independent research into
treatments for mental illness, the demand for Randomised Control
Trials as the only acceptable measure of whether a treatment works,
and the chilling control pharmaceutical companies now exert over
psychiatry...This is an important and thought-provoking
book...Healy's warning that, without a debate, we may be moving
into an era when cosmetic psychiatry will be the new liposuction is
worth heeding. -- Julie Wheelwright * The Independent *
This book is a good place to start if you want to get an overview
of the role of drugs in the treatment of mental illness...[Healy]
capture[s] an important current dilemma. -- Richard Restak *
Washington Times *
Psychiatrists and historians owe a debt to David Healy. Over the
years he has conducted interviews with all the leading figures in
psychopharmacology...Drawing on these interviews and his wide
reading of the scholarly literature, Healy has now constructed a
subtle and compelling narrative of the development of psychotropic
drugs...Healy ambitiously relates the emergence of drugs to the
wider culture and shows how the two have interacted...[He] has
written a highly stimulating and original book, which is brimful of
ideas and deserves to be read and debated throughout the
psychiatric community and beyond. -- Allan Beveridge * British
Journal of Psychiatry *
[N]o one has described it more thoroughly, or elucidated the
critical intersections between psychiatry and the pharmaceutical
industry more clearly. -- Morgan T. Sammons * Contemporary
Psychology *
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