Chemotherapy in Psychiatry

This is a third edition of a well-known single-author text on psychopharmacology, previously published in 1977 and 1985 by Harvard University Press, which has given copyright back to the author for further editions. The second edition was 350 pages, and a third edition is proposed that would be somewhat shorter at approximately 300 pages. §There is a compelling need for this book at this time, despite the long delay since the second edition, and despite availability of several excellent textbooks on this topic. Most of the available books on psychopharmacology are multi-authored, large, and rather cumbersome reference works. Owing to multi-authorship, they are also somewhat variable in their consistency of style and point of view. Written by the renowned Ross Baldessarini, this third edition will include a thorough update of a book that was well received nationally and internationally (the second edition was translated into German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish). In addition to widespread use as a reference text for practitioners, and as a teaching book of attractive length and level of both technical and clinical detail, many former medical students and psychiatric residents and mental health professionals found it particularly useful, having indicated to the author over the years that they favored it as an introductory text for its consistent viewpoint, §There are several reasons for preparing a third edition now. One is that the rate of progress in psychopharmacology shows signs of slowing: markets of some classes of drugs are saturating, and the rate of innovation with new and truly innovative products has slowed appreciably in recent years, following several decades of proliferation of large numbers of products. These circumstances indicate a need to consider even more closely how to choose among agents of a given class or type and how to refine clinical applications of available psychotropic drugs. §Overall, there is an urgent need for a critical and expert perspective by an author with several decades of experience in leading a preclinical laboratory program dedicated to designing and evaluating new psychotropic compounds at basic molecular and animal-behavioral levels, as well as directing a program in clinical psychopharmacology in a leading psychiatric teaching hospital, with clinical expertise in the assessment and treatment of patients with major mental illnesses. The author has close familiarity with the process of psychotropic drug development and testing, extensive experience in laboratory and clinical research and in industrial consultation, as well as very extensive teaching experience with graduate and medical students, clinical trainees, and practicing colleagues in various mental health professions. He also has authored the chapters on psychopharmacology of the leading American textbook of general pharmacology since 1980. §There is also an emerging need for critical assessment of the current status of so-called evidence-based psychiatric therapeutics, which continues to be wished-for, but has remained more elusive than is commonly believed. A related issue includes the need for a balanced but critical assessment of the benefits, limitations, and risks of psychiatric treatment that relies increasingly heavily on the use of psychotropic drugs, and is driven too often by economic and administrative considerations, rather than purely scientific or clinical considerations. These topics are not well addressed in most available books on this topic. This aspect of modern psychopharmacology requires consideration of controversial areas that include the impact of financial and organizational changes in modern American psychiatry and general medicine, and of the complex relationships among clinical and academic medicine and the pharmaceutical industry. §All of these topics will be addressed in a third edition more deeply and frankly than in the first two editions or in most other available texts on this topic. T