Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:45:22.712Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

American Psychopharmacology: Second Class Status?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

William S. Appleton
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Mental Health Center, and Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. Address: Massachusetts Mental Health Center, 74 Fenwood Road, Boston, Massachusetts, 02115
Ching-Piao Chien
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School. Staff Psychiatrist, Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan (on leave)

Extract

In the July 1964 issue of The Atlantic, William Sargant (6), made some controversial comments on American psychiatry. “Freudian converts”, he said, fear “allowing any other methods of psychiatric treatment to gain any real recognition and acceptance in … teaching centers” where physical and biochemical treatments are “dismissed” as “symptomatic” and “second-rate”. He argued, furthermore, that psychoanalysts' views are unrealistic because these practitioners are experienced merely with the “very mildest forms of mental illness”. “Only psychoanalysis holds out any real hope in treatment” is the credo which Dr. Sargant attributes to U.S. psychoanalysts. If these opinions were solely those of one author, they might be overlooked, but they are held by many European and American psychiatrists (1).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1967 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Freyhan, F. (1965). “On the psychopathology of psychiatric education.” Comprehensive Psychiat., 6(4), 221226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Kaplan, A., and Lefkowits, H. (1961). “Influence of staff attitudes and environmental factors on treatment selection.” J. Hillside Hosp., 10, 2, 8496.Google Scholar
3. Klerman, G. L. (1965). “The teaching of psychopharmacology in the psychiatric residency.” Comprehensive Psychiat., 6(4), 255264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. Klett, C. J., and Lasky, J. J. (1962). “Attitudes of hospital staff members towards mental illness and chemotherapy.” Dis. nerv. Syst., 23, 101105.Google Scholar
5. Mason, A. S., and Sachs, J. M. (1958). “Measurement of attitudes toward the tranquillizing drugs.” In: VA Dept. Med. and Surg. Transactions of the Second Research Conference on Chemotherapy in Psychiatry. Washington, 25, D.C., 2, 118122.Google Scholar
6. Sargant, W. (1964). “Psychiatric treatment: here and in England.” The Atlantic, 8895.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.