Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Part I Introduction: the new brain sciences
- Part II Freedom to change
- Part III Neuroscience and the law
- Part IV Stewardship of the new brain sciences
- 10 The neurosciences: the danger that we will think that we have understood it all
- 11 On dissecting the genetic basis of behaviour and intelligence
- 12 Prospects and perils of stem cell repair of the central nervous system: a brief guide to current science
- 13 The use of human embryonic stem cells for research: an ethical evaluation
- 14 The Prozac story
- 15 Psychopharmacology at the interface between the market and the new biology
- 16 Education in the age of Ritalin
- Part V Conclusion
- References
- Index
15 - Psychopharmacology at the interface between the market and the new biology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Part I Introduction: the new brain sciences
- Part II Freedom to change
- Part III Neuroscience and the law
- Part IV Stewardship of the new brain sciences
- 10 The neurosciences: the danger that we will think that we have understood it all
- 11 On dissecting the genetic basis of behaviour and intelligence
- 12 Prospects and perils of stem cell repair of the central nervous system: a brief guide to current science
- 13 The use of human embryonic stem cells for research: an ethical evaluation
- 14 The Prozac story
- 15 Psychopharmacology at the interface between the market and the new biology
- 16 Education in the age of Ritalin
- Part V Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION: FROM ANXIETY TO DEPRESSION AND BACK
As portrayed in pharmaceutical company advertisements, the typical nervous problems seen in both psychiatry and general practice from the 1960s through to the early 1990s took the form of an anxious woman in her twenties or early middle years. The exhortation was to treat her with benzodiazepines (such as Valium), marketed as tranquillisers. In contrast, during this period, advertisements for antidepressants typically featured much older women. However, in the 1990s young or middle-aged women with nervous problems were portrayed in the advertisements as depressed, with the exhortation to treat these problems with selective serotonin reuptake inhibiting (SSRI) antidepressants such as Prozac. By the end of the 1990s anxiety seemed all but forgotten by the advertisers. But, post 11 September 2001, the ‘typical’ woman is once again likely to be viewed as anxious, with exhortations to treat her with SSRI drugs, which seem now to have become anxiolytics. What is happening here? Are the biological bases of nervous problems really changing so quickly, or is this a matter of marketing of available new drugs, along with changes in nomenclature and fashion? There is arguably more to this than just a matter of changing fashions in the labels we put on nervous problems. In the past decade or so, pharmaceutical companies have developed abilities to change the very language we use to describe our most intimate experiences.
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- The New Brain SciencesPerils and Prospects, pp. 232 - 248Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
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