Psychopharmacology

“Not only did the somatogenic perspective have many strong adherents during the zenith of the psychoanalytic movement, it predated the psychogenic perspective by more than a century (Baumeister & Hawkins, 201) . . . . the paradigmatic status of the psychoanalytic perspective is questionable. . . . Although the psychoanalytic perspective [1950-1970] was certainly a powerful force, it was by no means universally accepted. . . . scientific research in psychiatry, even during the heyday of psychoanalysis, was overwhelmingly somatic in nature. . . In the middle of the twentieth century two clearly defined competing schools existed in psychiatry: psychogenic and somatogenic. In the 1970s and 1980s the somatogenic perspective rose to a level of dominance indicative of a true paradigm (Healy, 1987). However, the advent of psychopharmacology was not a revolution in the Kuhnian sense. Rather it was a normal science outgrowth of the somatogenic school” (207).