The Phoenix Rises: From Tardive Dyskinesia to the Introduction of the ‘Atypicals’

Abstract

By the 1970s the rose-tinted spectacles were securely in place. The new tranquillisers, now increasingly referred to as ‘antipsychotics’, were widely believed to be the first truly specific treatment for schizophrenia—a view that appeared to be confirmed by the emergence of the dopamine hypothesis. By this time public mental health systems had become dependent on the widespread use of these drugs both within hospitals and after discharge. Psychiatrist George Crane, whom we shall meet shortly, commented that the trend towards the management of more and more patients in the community had ‘generated the feeling that drug therapy is indispensable’. The primary purpose of community psychiatric services had become to dispense and administer medication, and almost everyone diagnosed with severe mental illness was taking antipsychotics (Crane, 1973, p. 125).

I am indebted to other accounts of the emergence of tardive dyskinesia (Tarsy, 1983; Breggin, 1993; Gelman, 1999).