For psychiatric disorders, the quantity and quality of treatment is always a concern. Some doctors argue drugs only, others advocate cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT; or less common forms of psychotherapy), while another school insists a balance of psychiatry and psychotherapy. In addition, some common pharmacological therapeutics, such as antidepressants, are utilized to treat a wide spectrum of psychiatric disorders, ranging from depression, substance abuse and eating disorders, to Internet/technology-facilitated syndromes, such as social anxiety disorder.

The history of this conundrum, what to treat and how, is reviewed by Gary Greenberg in this week’s New Yorker. Greenberg even details the history of some common psychiatric drugs, such as anxiolytics (anxio=anxiety; lytic= to break), which became highly stigmatized in the 1970s, after notable cases of abuse by Hollywood moguls, and were subsequently and euphemistically re-named “antidepressants.”