Trying to Find a Book...

[toby jones]

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I'm wondering if anybody would know of a (preferably good) book that describes how pharmacological treatments for mental disorders have evolved over time. I'm particularly interested in the relationship between this and:

1) Classification (e.g., 'lumping' what were thought to be distinct conditions together because similar meds work for both (e.g., depression / anxiety) and 'splitting' where we thought we had a unitary condition until medication persuaded us otherwise (e.g., neurosyphilis and schizophrenia).

2) The process of reasoning about causal mechanisms that is associated with finding new medications (e.g., 'SSRI's work on this pathway, therefore depression is an abnormality on this pathway).

I have found bits and pieces scattered amongst various sources, but I'm not sure if there is something out there that is devoted to this topic in particular. I'm more interested in finding an accurate account of how this process has worked (and a charitable analysis of how this is a useful way of finding out about causal mechanisms) than a sceptical analysis that 'pooh-poohs' it.

Thanks

🙂

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

"The Creation of Psychopharmacology" by David Healy.

It was recommended to me, though I haven't had a chance to read it yet....it is actually sitting right next to me now. From what I've heard it isn't research heavy, though it will definitely make the reader think about the evolution of psychopharmacology, warts and all.

It is the next book up on my reading list, so if you don't get around to reading it, I'll probably get to it in a few weeks.

-t

 

[toby jones]

Thanks, I'll put that down on my 'to read' list, too. I've encountered the authors name before and have been meaning to check him out. I've just started 'Listening to Prozac' which has a bit of an account (got the terms 'splitting' and 'clumping' from him. Shorter talks a bit about how pharmaceuticals have driven dx in his 'History of Psychiatry', as well. I think Roy Porter is getting there (in his history of medicine) but it really is a tome and I've only made it to the enlightenment...

I'm interested in the reasoning process in particular. The kind of information that is used to justify claims about causal mechanisms (like with depression and the serotonin system). Just finished reading Craver's 'The Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience' where he offers a normative account of explanation in neuro-science. I'm thinking that we often fall short of the ideal because we simply can't perform the manipulations that would adequately justify our causal claims. That might be a particular problem for social / cultural explanations because we are practically and ethically limited (and you can't study the effects of skinny supermodels on the prevalence of eating disorders in rat populations, for example. Or... You could... But nobody would seriously expect that finding to generalise to people!) And it would be tricky to randomly assign people to 'exposure to skinny supermodels' and 'non-exposure to skinny supermodels' conditions. And... It would take a while to run the study (if you want to set it up from birth to adulthood)...