Neuroleptic drugs Brain damage

The neuroleptic drugs are psychiatry s most notorious drug treatment. They are the principle treatment for the most severe and symbolic of psychiatric conditions, such as schizophrenia or psychosis, but they are intensely disliked by many patients who therefore often have to be forced or pressurised to take them. They are also a focus of controversy due to claims about their brain damaging effects. They have been known under many names including major tranquillisers and phenoth-iazines, but are now mostly referred to as antipsychotics a term that originated in North America. However to avoid the implications of disease specificity that this name implies I will mainly refer to them here as neuroleptics, a term that, as I explain below, better describes their characteristic actions. 

All of the neuroleptics are profoundly medication spellbinding (chapter 1), rendering the user unable to perceive the damage being done to his or her brain, mind, and body. Because of this, the neuroleptics readily lend themselves to the creation of iatrogenic denial and helplessness, in which the doctor uses drug-induced brain damage and dysfunction to produce a more docile, less troublesome patient. 

Often, the more acute or flagrant symptoms will begin to calm down during an initial session in which the vulnerable, overwhelmed person discovers an opportunity to relate to another person in a safe space. The most difficult people to help are those who have already been humiliated by oppressive psychiatric approaches and whose brains have been damaged by electroshock and neuroleptic drugs. 

Breggin, P. (1990). Brain damage, dementia and persistent cognitive dysfunction associated with neuroleptic drugs Evidence, etiology, implications. Journal of Mind and... 

Two Scandinavian patients taking combinations of neuroleptic drugs and tricyclic antidepressants developed epileptic seizures (194). The risk of seizures is greater in patients with brain damage or epilepsy and with high dosages, sudden increases in dosage, or shortly after the introduction of a second compound. 

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