physical treatments
Last reviewed 01/2018
These are the drug treatments that are used in psychiatry. There have been various suggestions as to how to classify the drugs used in psychiatry, and no classification has achieved universal support. The most popular basis for classification is one using clinical effects of the drugs and perhaps the least controversial of these is the one used by the World Health Organisation - 1967.
Alternative headings are shown in brackets.
- neuroleptics (antipsychotics or major tranquilisers)
- anxiolytic sedatives (minor tranquillisers) (includes hypnotics)
- antidepressants (thymoleptics)
- psychostimulants eg amphetamine, cocaine
- psychodysleptics (hallucinogens, psychedelics, psychotomimetics)
- miscellaneous eg lithium