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Editorial
Thanks to Our Reviewers in 2005
Joel Paris, MD
(PDF)

In Debate
Do Many Patients With Depression Suffer From Bipolar Disorder?
Jules Angst, MD
(PDF)

Does Almost Everybody Suffer From a Bipolar Disorder?
Scott B Patten, MD, FRCPC, PhD
(PDF)

Original Research Community Survey of Bipolar Disorder in Canada: Lifetime Prevalence and Illness Characteristics
Ayal Schaffer, John Cairney, Amy Cheung, Scott Veldhuizen, Anthony Levitt,
(PDF)

Correlates of Methylphenidate Use in Canadian Children: A Cross-Sectional Study
Alice Charach, Hongmei Cao, Russell Schachar, Teresa To
(PDF)

Polysomnographic and Symptomatological Analyses of Major Depressive Disorder Patients Treated With Mirtazapine
Jianhua Shen, Sharon A Chung, Leonid Kayumov, Henry Moller, Naheed Hossain, Xuehua Wang, Prativa Deb, Frank Sun, Xin Huang, Marta Novak, Darryl Appleton, Colin M Shapiro
(PDF)

Suicidality, Depression, and Mental Health Service Use in Canada
Anne E Rhodes, Jennifer Bethell, Susan J Bondy
(PDF)

Status of First-Episode Psychosis Patients Presenting for Routine Care in a Defined Catchment Area
Jennifer Payne, Ashok Malla, Ross Norman, Deborah Windell, Nicole Brown
(PDF)

Test Wisconsin chez les patients souffrant de schizophrénie, et leurs frères et soeurs
Youssef El Hamaoui, Meryem Elyazaji, Sakina Yaalaoui, Linda Rachidi, Mohamed Saoud, Thierry d’Amato, Driss Moussaoui, Jean Dalery, Omar Battas
(PDF)

Book Reviews
(PDF)

Clinical Handbook of Psychotropic Drugs. 14th revised edition
Review by
Nicholas Delva

Marijuana and Madness
Review by
Nady el-Guebaly

Manual of Psychiatric Care for the Medically Ill
Review by
François M Mai

Guidebook on Helping Persons with Mental Retardation Mourn
Review by
Bruce D McCreary

Ethical Issues in Forensic Mental Health Research
Review by
Paul Fedoroff

Letters to the Editor
(PDF)

Re: Listening to the Past: History, Psychiatry, and Anxiety

Reply: Listening to the Past: History, Psychiatry, and Anxiety

Letters to the Editor

Reply: Listening to the Past: History, Psychiatry, and Anxiety

Dear Editor: Antonio Nardi’s letter highlights key moments in the development of medical understandings of panic disorders, now recognized as one of several types of anxiety disorders. His point about the physiological impact of anxiety is important, and his predictions about the role 21st-century technologies may have in shedding light on the biological mechanisms of panic disorder are suggestive.

The objective of “Listening to the Past” was to situate the history of anxiety and psychopharmacology in a broad social, economic, and political context—a focus that enables us to connect scientific theories about anxiety with the everyday clinical practices that transformed the practice of psychiatry at the ground level. One of the consequences of the Miltown revolution in the 1950s (1) was that it shifted the treatment of anxiety from specialists to general practitioners. For millions who suffered from anxiety, anxiolytics were the chief vehicle through which they understood and treated their predicament; for better and for worse, the remarkable scientific theories of the age were less important than the new-found availability of relatively cheap and easily acquired pills that attenuated symptoms.

A full accounting of the history of psychiatry requires that we explore the myriad ideas, historical actors, and variables—and not just the scientific advances that often get the lion’s share of attention—that give medical history its shape. As I state on p 376 of my article, “to confine the history of psychopharmacology to medical theory, the laboratory, and physicians is to disconnect it from the very world that gave it meaning.”

References

1. Selling L. Clinical study of a new tranquilizing drug: use of miltown. JAMA 1955:1594–8.

Andrea Tone, PhD,
Montreal, Quebec