Turning points in twentieth-century American psychiatry

The author examines four major turning points in twentieth-century American psychiatry, emphasizing the movement during the post-World War II period toward a psychotherapeutic/psychoanalytic approach and the emergence of biological psychiatry, neuroscience, and logical positivism during the 1970s and 1980s. He discusses the impact of Adolf Meyer during the mid-twentieth century and his ongoing influence. The final turning point involves a prediction of a late twentieth-century change, including new directions in nosology, emphasis on combined pharmacotherapeutic/psychotherapeutic treatments, efforts to create alternatives to full inpatient care, better outcome data for psychiatric treatments, and beginning resolution of major boundary problems of current practice.