Psychiatric therapy advances

Shock Therapy. The early 20th century saw the development of the first effective biological treatments for depression, the shock therapies. The first shock treatments used injection of horse serum or insulin. A major advance in treatment occurred with the advent of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in 1934. Although initially used to treat schizophrenia, ECT was soon found to be highly effective for other psychiatric disorders including depression and mania. ECT remained the primary biological psychiatric treatment until the widespread release of psychiatric medications in the 1950s. 

Electroconvulsive therapy [ECT] is one of the oldest somatic treatments in psychiatry. The emergence of the field of psychopharmacology in the 1960s eclipsed advancement in ECT practice and research. To some extent, the pendulum has swung back in the past 15 years, as there has been intensive rediscovery of the basic science of ECT and an increase in its clinical use. Contemporary research has reexamined clinical issues, such as indications for treatment, response prediction, and relapse prevention, given the changing nature of psychiatric treatment and referral patterns. At the same time, more sophisticated approaches to treatment... 

Stahl s Essential Psychopharmacology has established itself as the preeminent source of education and information in its field. This much expanded second edition enlists advances in neurobiology and recent clinical developments to explain with renewed clarity the concepts underlying drug treatment of psychiatric disorders. New neurotransmitter systems, new theories of schizophrenia, clinical advances in antipsychotic and antidepressant therapy, new coverage of attention deficit disorder, sleep disorders, and drug abuse, and a new chapter on sex-specific and sexual function-related psychopharmacology—these are all features of this edition. 

P. H. Yu and A A Boulton in S. H. Kennedy, Ed, Clinical Advances in Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor Therapies, American Psychiatric Press, Washington, DC, 1994, pp. 61-82. 

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