---
title: "History of psychiatry"
chunk: 4/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_psychiatry"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:00:14.419901+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Biological psychiatry reemerged during this time. Psychopharmacology became an integral part of psychiatry starting with Otto Loewi's discovery of the neuromodulatory properties of acetylcholine; thus identifying it as the first-known neurotransmitter. Neuroimaging was first utilized as a tool for psychiatry in the 1980s. The discovery of chlorpromazine's effectiveness in treating schizophrenia in 1952 revolutionized treatment of the disorder, as did lithium carbonate's ability to stabilize mood highs and lows in bipolar disorder in 1948. Psychotherapy was still utilized, but as a treatment for psychosocial issues. In the 1920s and 1930s, most asylum and academic psychiatrists in Europe believed that manic depressive disorder and schizophrenia were inherited, but in the decades after World War II, the conflation of genetics with Nazi racist ideology thoroughly discredited genetics.
Now, genetics are once again thought by some prominent researchers to play a large role in mental illness. The genetic and heritable proportion of the cause of five major psychiatric disorders found in family and twin studies is 81% for schizophrenia, 80% for autism spectrum disorder, 75% for bipolar disorder, 75% for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and 37% for major depressive disorder. Geneticist Müller-Hill is quoted as saying "Genes are not destiny, they may give an individual a pre-disposition toward a disorder, for example, but that only means they are more likely than others to have it. It (mental illness) is not a certainty." Molecular biology opened the door for specific genes contributing to mental disorders to be identified.

== Deinstitutionalization ==

Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (1961), written by sociologist Erving Goffman, examined the social situation of mental patients in the hospital. Based on his participant observation field work, the book developed the theory of the "total institution" and the process by which it takes efforts to maintain predictable and regular behavior on the part of both "guard" and "captor". The book suggested that many of the features of such institutions serve the ritual function of ensuring that both classes of people know their function and social role, in other words of "institutionalizing" them. Asylums was a key text in the development of deinstitutionalisation. At the same time, academic psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Thomas Szasz began publishing articles and books that were highly critical of psychiatry and involuntary treatment, including his best-known work The Myth of Mental Illness in 1961.
In 1963, US president John F. Kennedy introduced legislation delegating the National Institute of Mental Health to administer Community Mental Health Centers for those being discharged from state psychiatric hospitals. Later, though, the Community Mental Health Centers focus shifted to providing psychotherapy for those with acute but less serious mental disorders. Ultimately there were no arrangements made for actively following and treating severely mentally ill patients who were being discharged from hospitals. Some of those with mental disorders drifted into homelessness or ended up in prisons and jails. Studies found that 33% of the homeless population and 14% of inmates in prisons and jails were already diagnosed with a mental illness.
In 1973, psychologist David Rosenhan published the Rosenhan experiment, a study with results that led to questions about the validity of psychiatric diagnoses. Critics such as Robert Spitzer placed doubt on the validity and credibility of the study, but did concede that the consistency of psychiatric diagnoses needed improvement. Spitzer went on to chair the writing of the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which aimed to improve reliability by emphasizing measurable symptoms.
Psychiatry, like most medical specialties, has a continuing, significant need for research into its diseases, classifications and treatments. Psychiatry adopts biology's fundamental belief that disease and health are different elements of an individual's adaptation to an environment. But psychiatry also recognizes that the environment of the human species is complex and includes physical, cultural, and interpersonal elements. In addition to external factors, the human brain must contain and organize an individual's hopes, fears, desires, fantasies and feelings. Psychiatry's difficult task is to bridge the understanding of these factors so that they can be studied both clinically and physiologically.

== See also ==
History of child and adolescent psychiatry
History of psychiatric institutions
History of neurology
History of psychology
History of neuropsychology
History of neurophysiology

== References ==

== Cited texts ==
Guze SB (1992). Why Psychiatry Is a Branch of Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507420-8. OCLC 25315637.
Lyness JM (1997). Psychiatric Pearls. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Company. ISBN 978-0-8036-0280-9. OCLC 807453406.
Shorter, E (1997), A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., ISBN 978-0-471-24531-5{{citation}}:  CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

== Further reading ==
Jeffrey A. Lieberman; Ogi Ogas (2016). Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-27898-0.