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JOURNAL ARTICLE
Psychiatric Drugging: Forty Years of Pseudo-
Science, Self-Interest, and Indifference to Harm
David H. Jacobs
The Journal of Mind and Behavior
Vol. 16, No. 4 (Autumn 1995), pp. 421-470 (50 pages)
Published By: Institute of Mind and Behavior, Inc.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43853799
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Abstract
The "modern" era of psychiatric drug treatment began with the introduction of chlorpromazine
into the chaotic mental hospital setting in the 1950s as a new psychotropic agent for controlling
excitement, agitation, and aggressivity. In that setting the urgency of management problems
operated to shrink the complexity of the patient as a psycho-social being down to specific
"symptoms" targeted for chemical subjugation. From this beginning — a chemically produced
quieting or "tranquilization" — there emerged a revitalized psychiatric movement to expand the
"strictly medical" understanding and treatment of psychological disturbance that acknowledges
no limits. This state of affairs has achieved a position of dominance and respect in the mental
health industry, based upon social forces operating within psychiatry as a profession and outside
of psychiatry in the larger political–economic realm. The catastrophe of widespread and
expanding medically-produced disease has failed to alarm psychiatry into taking stock of the
determinants of the catastrophe — indeed the existence and magnitude of the tragedy is barely
recognized within psychiatry. This conclusion is illustrated by detailed examination of the
psychopharmacologic agents alprazolam (Xanax) and fluoxetine (Prozac).
Journal Information
The Journal of Mind and Behavior (JMB)recognizes that mind and behavior position, interact, and
causally relate to each other in multi-directional ways; the Journal urges the exploration of these
interrelationships. JMB is particularly interested in scholarly work in the following areas: the
psychology, philosophy, and sociology of experimentation and the scientific method; the mind-
body problem in psychiatry and the social sciences; critical examination of the DSM-
biopsychiatry- somatotherapy framework of thought and practice; issues pertaining to the ethical
study of cognition, self-awareness, and higher functions of thought in non-human animals.
Publisher Information
Small academic publisher dedicated to the interdisciplinary approach in psychology, psychiatry
and related fields. Publisher of The Journal of Mind and Behavior. Sponsor of symposia and
conferences on theories of consciousness and mind-body problem in the social sciences.
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The Journal of Mind and Behavior © 1995 Institute of Mind and Behavior, Inc.
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