This review gives information on selection criteria for the psychopharmacological treatment of psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents, and offers practical instructions for the use of these drugs. Unless mentioned otherwise, the data on effectiveness and safety have been based on controlled trials. In addition, advices are given with respect to drugs that have proved to be effective and safe in adult psychiatric patients but have not yet been investigated sufficiently in children and adolescents.

In this second part of a review on drug-induced psychosis in Parkinson's disease, the characteristics of typical and atypical neuroleptics will be compared and the therapeutic efficacy and the extrapyramidal side-effects of ‘atypical’ antipsychotic drugs will be discussed. These drugs affect serotonergic, adrenergic as well as dopaminergic neurotransmission and are best distinguished from the typical neuroleptics on the basis of the relationship between strong 5-HT2 and weak D2 affinities. Their succes may rely on this spectrum of effects. Clozapine, being the first choice, will be discussed in more detail.

A survey of the history of psychopharmacotherapy is presented.

In Antiquity some psycho-active plant extracts were already known . Since the rise of chemistry in early nineteenth century, sedative drugs were synthesized first. Since the fifties of this century the four groups of psychotherapeutic drugs proper, anxiolytics, hypnotics, antipsychotics and antidepressants have been discovered.

Astute clinical or preclinical observation and the understanding of coincidences, serendipity, has been the basis of these discoveries. Since the prototypes were discovered, no real breakthroughs have been achieved.

Onlang s werd ik gevraagd deel te nemen aan een rondetafel conference waarin gediscussieerd zou worden over de meerwaarde van de academische psychiatrie. Het onderwerp verbaasde me. Ik ben van mening dat het adjectief “academisch” per definitie meerwaarde vertegenwoordigt, dat daar weinig over te discussieren valt. Althans dat dit zo behoort te zijn. Anders wordt die term in oneigenlijke zin gebruikt. De vraag is derhalve overbodig; leek mij, anders gezegd, een pleonastisch element te bevatten.