CHLORPROMAZINE IN THE TREATMENT OF EMOTIONALLY MALADJUSTED CHILDREN

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Children who are overtly aggressive, delinquent, and destructive constitute a difficult treatment problem because their withdrawal and inaccessibility make them poor subjects for psychotherapy, guidance, and milieu therapy. Quieting them with sedatives accomplishes nothing beyond providing a respite for harassed hospital personnel, since such drugs usually make the children inaccessible to the therapist and, in some cases, may further excite them. When Lehmann and Hanrahan found that a new phenothiazine derivative, namely chlorpromazine [10-(y-dimethylaminopropyl)-2-chlorophenothiazine hydrochloride], controlled psychomotor excitement in psychiatric patients, without appreciably clouding consciousness, interest was aroused in assessing the usefulness of this compound in treating emotionally maladjusted children. The findings of Altschule, Bower, and Cook that the drug abolishes response to a conditioned reflex in animals suggested its use in altering conflict-laden conditioning in maladjusted children, especially in those in whom onset of the nonconforming, aggressive, acting-out behavior was of recent origin, perhaps two to three years. The

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: