Pharmacological, Convulsive and Other Somatic Treatments in Psychiatry [antikvár]

This monograph, which deals with all somatic treatments in psychiatry, grew out of an originál book on Shock Treatments published in 1946. Even at that time, it had become evident that psychiatry was heading for great advances through the introduction of several new treatments developed almost simultaneously in the 1930's. Since patients suffering from the previously untreatable major psychoses benefited the most from these methods, their appearance had an enormous impact on all areas of psychiatry. Significant changes in the management of mentái hospitals were made possible, and custodial care was replaced by a positive therapeutic approach with the goal of social rehabilitation. Regrettably, it soon became noticeable that introduction of a new treatment was often regarded as competition with or replacement of previous therapeutic methods. To avoid this competitive situation, the originál 1946 book was designed to offer a balanced view of the then available treatments. It has been with this in mind that the senior author, more closely connected with convulsive therapy, had invited the late Paul Hoch to contribute to the chapter on insulin coma therapy, in which he had more extensive experience. Later, pharmacotherapy became more and more important, and this again suggested a co-author primarily engaged in this type of work, who would guarantee a balanced view of pharmacotherapy and the previous somatic treatments. The choice of the new co-author in the present edition, a European psychiatrist experienced in psychopharmacology, was alsó meant to continue the international character of the book which had already been emphasized in its first writing, and which had been continued in the edition of 1961 by the collaboration of the English psychiatrist, Dr. Brenda Grant. It has been tried to avoid the shortcomings sometimes seen in books written by many contributors with entirely different views. On the other hand, the present authors have made no effort to adhere strictly to identical views on all matters; and it is hoped that occasional differences of opinion between them, as reflected in the book, will not be confusing to the reader or interfere with a relatively uniform representation of the subject matter. It was often difficult to decide whether, in this new volume, to eliminate previous discussions of certain treatments which presently seemed to have ix