Listening to the past: History, psychiatry, and anxiety

Abstract

This article explores the history of psychiatry and the rise of biological psychiatry and suggests ways in which the study of history can shed light on current psychiatric practice and debate. Focusing on anxiolytics (meprobomate in the 1950s and benzodiazepines in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s) as a case study in the development of psychopharmacology, it shows how social and political factors converged to popularize and later stigmatize outpatient treatments for anxiety. The importance of social context in the creation of new therapeutic paradigms in modern psychiatry suggests the need to take into account a broad range of historical variables to understand how modern psychopharmacology has emerged and how particular treatments for disorders have been developed, diffused, and assessed.