Psychopharmacology Reconsidered

The book will cover in brief all the currently used groups of psychotropic drugs used by psychiatrists and could be used by psychiatric residents in their course of study, by clinical psychology students taking a one-time required psychopharmacology course, or by young psychiatrists curious to get a readable but comprehensive look at new critical viewpoints in psychopharmacology that have changed since they were taught. Many neuroscience students who are looking for a review of clinical effects to guide their basic research may also find the proposed text more useful than those texts that collate unsupported clinical claims. The book derives from my lecture notes in my last ten years of teaching psychopharmacology to psychiatry residents, my fifteen years of teaching a semester-long course to neuroscience graduate students on the biochemical basis of psychopharmacology, and my last two years of teaching one-semester psychopharmacology to clinical psychology graduate students. My original slides for these lectures will be the basis for the figures in the textbook.

Current texts are for specialized scientists (such as Neuropsychopharmacology: The Fifth Generation of Progress: An Official Publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Pck Edition) or part of multi-authored texts such as Kaplan & Sadock Pocket Handbook of Psychiatric Drug Treatment, which is user unfriendly, lists drugs alphabetically with no conceptual framework, or books such as those by Stephen Stahl, which pretend that each drug property such as alpha receptor blockade by atypical antipsychotics has a clear and known clinical result, presented in cartoon style. Some lesser known texts exist such as Handbook of Clinical Psychopharmacology for Therapists (J. Preston, Harbinger Publications, 2021) but it is not authoritative. Others, such has Clinical Psychopharmacology Made Ridiculously Simple (John Preston) aimed at patients or families are too simplistic for clinicians.

I am eager to write a unified text expressing my view of psychopharmacology, its evidence base and biochemical basis, the unity of its essential principles, and its independence of DSM or ICD diagnosis.

I recently did a book review for publication on a new book by the noted historian of psychopharmacology, The Rise and Fall of the Age of Psychopharmacology by Edward Shorter (Oxford University Press, 2021) for International History of Psychopharmacology, Tom Ban, editor. Shorter describes the fall of psychopharmacology, the corruption of big pharma and the failure of large controlled clinical trials. My book will make sure that young clinicians are aware of and understand this critical zeitgeist but aware also of the essential true core of psychopharmacology and the evidence upon which it rests.