Towards a sociology of tranquillizer prescribing

Gabe, Jonathan

doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.1990.tb00622.x

Cited by 22 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…By the late 1980s, however, it made more sense for drug companies to market products aimed at the wide array of stress conditions as “antidepressants” rather than “anxiolytics.” A sharp backlash against the anxiolytic drugs had developed in the early 1970s when the media turned sharply against their use, showing in many stories their addictive potential, use in suicide attempts, and other negative side effects. In response, patients, with backing by organized advocacy groups, filed numerous lawsuits against the manufacturers of these drugs (Gabe 1990). In addition, the rise of the feminist movement, which harshly assailed these drugs because of their assumed role in upholding patriarchal norms and keeping women confined in oppressive social roles, was another nail in the tranquilizers’ coffin (Herzberg 2009).…”

Section: How Depression Captured the Stress Marketplacementioning

confidence: 99%

How an Age of Anxiety Became an Age of Depression

Horwitz

2010

Milbank Quarterly

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Context: During the 1950s and 1960s, anxiety was the emblematic mental health problem in the United States, and depression was considered to be a rare condition. One of the most puzzling phenomena regarding mental health treatment, research, and policy is why depression has become the central component of the stress tradition since then. Methods: This article reviews statistical trends in diagnosis, treatment, drug prescriptions, and textual readings of diagnostic criteria and secondary literature. Findings: The association of anxiety with diffuse and amorphous conceptions of “stress” and “neuroses” became incompatible with professional norms demanding diagnostic specificity. At the same time, the contrasting nosologies of anxiety and depression in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders III (DSM‐III) extended major depressive disorder to encompass far more patients than any particular anxiety disorder. In addition, antidepressant drugs were not associated with the stigma and alleged side effects of the anxiolytic drugs. Conclusion: Various factors combined between the 1970s and the 1990s to transform conditions that had been viewed as “anxiety” into “depression.” New interests in the twenty‐first century, however, might lead to the reemergence of anxiety as the signature mental health problem of American society.

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Section: How Depression Captured the Stress Marketplacementioning

confidence: 99%

How an Age of Anxiety Became an Age of Depression

Horwitz

2010

Milbank Quarterly

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“…Time becomes a factor in doctor/patient consultations, with the increased workload and the daily pressures of not only patient care, but also the independent management of their surgeries and the advent of fund‐holding. These pressures of work often result in prescriptions for patients as it is sometimes seen as an ‘easy option’ as opposed to a lengthy consultation and negotiating alternative treatments ( Gabe 1990). A prescription can offer a ‘quick fix’ for both the patient and the doctor, making it preferable end to a five minute consultation ( Lipton & Bero 1991.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A qualitative study utilizing a focus group to explore the role and concept of the nurse practitioner

Torn

McNichol

1998

Journal of Advanced Nursing

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This paper describes the first part of a two-stage study exploring the concept of the nurse practitioner role. By utilization of a focus group methodology, data were collated from a cohort of eight RCN trained nurse practitioners. The transcript from their discussion was subjected to a qualitative-based content analysis. Eight categories emerged from the data and this paper explores four of them. These are: role recognition, feature of the nurse practitioner role, nurse/patient relationship and doctor/patient relationship. As a whole the focus group discussion highlighted the diversity in application of the nurse practitioner title. This in part, reflects the rapidly evolving role and the ongoing debate regarding the terms advanced and specialist practitioner.

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“…In the wake of these debates, the volatile alliance between "mental disorders" and "psychosocial problems" is one area in which pharmacological non-specificity is most resistant to the canonical model of "one drug, one disease". Important studies have been published on the sociology or the history of psychotropic drug use since the 1980s (Montagne, 2001;Gabe, 1990;Ettorre et al, 1994). Moreover, in the past decade or so, the history of psychiatric drug treatment has inspired a number of significant publications (Horwitz, 2010;Shorter, 2009;Herzberg, 2009;Tone, 2009;Moncrieff, 2008;Healy, 2004).…”

Section: The Issue Of Contemporary Anxiety-depressive Disordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resistance and mutations of non-specificity in the field of anxiety-depressive disorders in Canadian medical journals, 1950–1990

Collin

Otero

2015

Social Science & Medicine

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Pharmaceuticalisation is a complex phenomenon, co-constitutive of what scholars identify as a pharmaceutical regime, comprised of networks of actors, institutions and artefacts as well as cognitive structures that underlie the production, promotion and use of medications. The aim of this paper is to explore the linkages between different components of this pharmaceutical regime through the analysis of psychotropic drug advertising in Canadian medical journals between 1950 and 1990. Advertisements stand at the nexus of macro-level processes related to the development, regulation and marketing of new drug treatments and of micro-level processes related to the use of these drug treatments, both by clinicians and lay persons. We thus examine advertisements from the angle of the mental and classificatory universes to which doctors were exposed through direct-to-prescriber advertisement strategies implemented during this period. Furthermore, we explore to what extent the rationale behind advertisements was permeated by both scientific/professional and popular narratives of mind-body connections. This paper demonstrates that, although this period was marked by paradigm shifts in the classification of mental diseases, the development of modern psychopharmacology, and the questioning of the scientific legitimacy of psychiatry, advertisements unveil a remarkable continuity: that of the mass management of anxiety-depressive disorders by primary care physicians through psychotropic drugs. Also, despite the effective resistance to specificity as shown by the constant redefinitions of diagnostic categories and therapeutic indications, our analysis suggests that the language of specificity used in the promotion of new drugs and in the various narratives of mind-body connection may have been appealing to general practitioners. Finally, our study of the classes of psychoactive medications that have been in use for over half a century reveals a complex, non-linear dynamic of pharmaceuticalisation and de-pharmaceuticalisation.

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Towards a sociology of tranquillizer prescribing

Cited by 22 publications

References 27 publications

How an Age of Anxiety Became an Age of Depression

How an Age of Anxiety Became an Age of Depression

A qualitative study utilizing a focus group to explore the role and concept of the nurse practitioner

Resistance and mutations of non-specificity in the field of anxiety-depressive disorders in Canadian medical journals, 1950–1990

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