A short excerpt from a December 2010 YouTube discussion (FMU featuring Dr. Andrew Scull) describing a historical shift in psychiatry over the past four to five decades: the field moved from psychoanalysis and social/psychological emphasis (dominant leadership in US departments circa 1970) toward neuroscience, biological research, and drug-focused approaches in more recent decades.
I think, in general, if we look at the evolution of psychiatry over the last four or five decades, what we see is a shift away from a period where social and psychological factors were considered as central parts of the picture to one where, increasingly we move towards biology. And if you look at the pattern within psychiatric training programs in major medical schools, in 1970, virtually every major department in the United States, with the exception of Washington University in St. Louis, was headed by either a psychoanalyst or what we might think of as a psychoanalytic fellow traveler. And if you look now, none of them are Everything's moved in the direction of neuroscience, everything's moved in the direction of biological research and drug related research. So the field has moved very sharply away from where its center of gravity was three or four decades ago. And that's not unprecedented in the history of psychiatry.
