The Brain, Drugs, and Treatment: Psychopharmacology and its Transformation Throughout the Years

What is Psychopharmacology?

The prefix “psycho” originates from the Greek word psykhē, roughly translating to  “soul,” “mind,” and “spirit,” with the base word “pharmacology” itself being a combination of the Greek prefix “pharma” meaning “drug” and the Greek suffix “ology” meaning “study of” (Wikipedia Foundation, 2005).

Pharmacology is the study of how chemical compounds and molecules such as drugs and/or medication interact with the human body, with two main areas of focus: 

1. Pharmacokinetics - the study of how the body influences and impacts administered drugs, specifically exploring how the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion(ADME) of drugs occur within a body (Crowley, 2023).  

2. Pharmacodynamics - the study of how administered drugs influence and impact the body, understanding the effects a drug produces for both its intended purpose and any other side effects it may have throughout the rest of the body (Crowley, 2023).

Combining this with the prefix “psycho,” we understand psycholopharmacology to be the scientific field analyzing the impact of drugs on a person’s cognitive behaviors and functions both emotionally and mentally. Simply put, psychopharmacology explores how various chemical compounds alter a person’s mental health and mental state. 

In practice, psychopharmacology not only holds potential as a form of treatment for mental disorders and illnesses in the field of psychology, but it can also be used to understand many of the processes that occur in our day-to-day lives. When hearing of a field dealing with the impact of drugs on the brain, many may stray to very specific or explicit instances of using drugs to treat mental disorders such as antidepressants or medication for schizophrenia as immediate examples. However, even commonplace substances like caffeine and alcohol and their consequential impacts on our mental state can be better understood and more efficiently utilized using the tools of psychopharmacology. 

Psychopharmacology offers up a wide range of possibilities, serving not only as a possible future treatment option for presently incurable or unpreventable mental disorders and illnesses given advancement in research and technology, but also as a means to better understand and regulate the substances we interact with on a daily basis. It is possible that psychopharmacology holds the potential to be a straightforward and direct solution to perhaps some of the most long-standing problems of mental ills that have plagued mankind. 

History of Psychopharmacology

Psychopharmacology is itself a relatively new and developing field. While there is plentiful evidence for human kind's early usage of drugs: fossilized seeds found among remnants of human civilization suggesting hallucinogen usage dating all the way back to the era of hunters and gathers, a written record on a piece of papyrus from Egypt around the 3500 B.C.E describing a brewery that is thought to have produced beer, and even a reference to the intoxicating nature of alcohol in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh written around 2000 B.C.E, it was only until 1920 that the term psychopharmacology is said to have been coined by the pharmacologist David Macht (Evolve's Behavioral Health Content Team, 2024; Wikipedia Foundation, 2005). Even then, it was only until the 1950s with the production of chlorpromazine that the scientific world saw the modern field of psychopharmacology as it is today begin to emerge. 

The Prehistory of Psychopharmacology

Despite this, decades prior, in what many now dub as the prehistory before modern psychopharmacology, numerous scientists and healthcare professionals had already begun experimenting with the possibility of using drugs to induce desired results in both healthcare and scientific environments. 

As early as 1903, the effects of certain psychotropic drugs had already become known and implemented as a remedy to both physical and mental health issues. Barbiturates, specifically barbituric acid discovered by Emil Fischer and Joseph von Mering, found itself employed for its sedative properties as therapeutic treatment in many asylums. During that time, barbiturates also found themselves in application as anesthesia for minor operations, medication for certain sleep disorders, and as a means to control epileptic seizures, with the latter two purposes in certain circumstances continuing to be addressed even today by modern healthcare professionals with a prescription of barbiturates. (Lopez-Munoz et al., 2005). 

Similarly, in 1937, Dr. Charles Bradely found that the usage of benzedrine to treat ADHD in school children yielded beneficial results, with improvements reported in behavior and school performance. In 1949, lithium salts were tested on patients in an effort to quell their mania after their sedative properties on guinea pigs were discovered by John Cade (Robinson, 2018). Furthermore, a plethora of other sedatives and hypnotics were employed by asylum physicians during this time for their ability to produce a soothing effect on patients’ mental well-being. Although psychotropic drugs were acknowledged for their tranquilizing properties and ability to quell symptoms of long-established mental ills, physicians and scientists recognized their role in treatment as limited to only that of a temporary relief and not as a permanent and sustainable cure that could address the core of the ills. 

The Golden Age of Psychopharmacology

The creation of chlorpromazine in 1950 saw a shift in the perception of psychotropic drugs as merely being symptom alleviators, effective but temporary, to sustainable treatments for mental disorders. From the 1950s-1960s, the modern classes of all psychotropic drugs were discovered in what is now fittingly named the golden age of psychopharmacology. The majority of such discoveries and advancements were produced primarily out of luck and chance. For instance, the discovery of tricyclic antidepressants originated from the attempt of a pharmaceutical company trying to find a viable alternative to compete with chlorpromazine. While the compound they tested, iminodibenzyl, did not produce the same soothing effects as chlorpromazine, they did discover its positive impact on depression, resulting in the unearthing of an entirely new class of psychotropic drugs. 

Psychopharmacology, itself a new field, was not left untouched by the explosiveness and influx of new ideologies posed within the field of psychology during this time period. Psychoanalysis, perhaps one of the most well known ideologies to rise from that period, focuses on treatment of mental disorders and illnesses through the lenses of the unconscious and the buried social, emotional, and wishful factors at play within a person. Unlike psychopharmacology, psychoanalytic treatment is based on an external analysis of one’s psyche through conversations between an analyst and a patient, relying on the observance and acknowledgment of patterns in problematic behaviors or thought processes by both the patient and analyst. Addressing and bringing awareness to such issues, allows the patient to confront underlying issues, moving forward and achieving mental relief or freedom from said issues. Treatment oftentimes requires long term and consistent live sessions between a patient and an analysis (American Psychoanalytic Association, n.d.). 

Despite glaring differences in approach in treatment and even rationale of the mental ills themselves, the psychoanalytical belief that there is no well defined “norm” for the human psyche and the understanding that no obvious distinction between the condition of what is considered a mental ill and what is considered normal exists, led to the acceptance of a more robust range of mental disorders and diseases. Mental conditions that were once simply considered an issue found in daily life would now be classified as a disease and treated with medical tools such as drugs. In addition, the flourishing of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic treatment made it so that the role of psychopharmacology was as treatment employed in conjunction and support of other remedies, often psychotherapy, and not as a sustainable cure for the root of the issue (Braslow and Marder, 2019). 

Psychopharmacology’s Role in the Present:

Over the past couple decades, psychopharmacology has slowly become increasingly ingrained in our medicinal culture and even into parts of our pop culture. No longer is it simply the side remedy merely used as an adjunct to the main treatment; rather, psychopharmacology now inhabits its own starring role.

Nowadays, certain estimates claim that one in six people currently take a psychotropic drug(Braslow and Marder, 2019). In particular, the usage of psychotropic drugs has seen the greatest absolute increase in the highest income countries, and the greatest relative increase in middle and middle-upper income countries. It is possible factors such as income and cultural elements may help account for a portion of these differences although it’s unlikely that they are the sole influences (Brauer et al., 2021). Similarly, the perspective of medical professionals on psychopharmacology has also greatly shifted. Where once the field of psychiatry was marked by psychotherapy based approaches and composed of psychoanalytical theories regarding the psyche, now more than ever are we diagnostically treating mental ills as if any other biological disease: the cure being the prescription of drugs. 

Psychopharmacology has seen its fair share of critics in the past. Whether from a clinically based standpoint, debating the potency of commonly used psychotropic drugs, or from an emotionally based standpoint, questioning the ethicalness of reducing human emotions to simply that of the chemical relationship between neural pathways, modern psychopharmacology is not without its flaws. Indeed, the intimateness between the economics of the market and psychopharmacology is doubtless a key player in its development as a field. On the contrary, the pursuit of psychopharmacology has already seen success in fulfilling some of its original purposes. The widespread adoption of prescribing psychotropic drugs has allowed more and more patients and families to receive relief, however temporary, from symptoms of mental illnesses that would have otherwise inhibited a normal lifestyle. Moreover, psychotropic drugs may perhaps be part of the solution to address the current disparities existing in mental health care. 

In 2022, more than 40% of people in the U.S. with mental illnesses were unable to access care. Although there are approximately 50,000 licensed psychiatrists in the U.S., more than 40% of them are cash-based practices, leaving numerous underrepresented and underserved regions, with patients on some waitlists in areas of high-need waiting for months on end (Morris, 2022). Further advancements in psychopharmacology could allow even psychiatric professionals like psychologists to begin serving patients, bridging the gap between need and demand. Implementation of psychotropic drugs as a treatment plan is also far easier and less time-consuming than patient-doctor interaction based treatment plans, further addressing disparities in care. Recent breakthroughs in AI-powered machine learning also offer new leeway into the future of psychopharmacology, inspiring the notion of incorporating such tools to expand psychopharmacology as a whole. 

Perhaps the potential of psychopharmacology has already been reached and future advancements are restricted to but a few minor breakthroughs, or perhaps the second golden age of psychopharmacology has yet to come. Whatever the case may be, psychopharmacology has no doubt altered the course of psychiatry; it will continue and has continued to alter society’s perception of mental illnesses and the public’s response to them. Psychopharmacology will not be left untouched though. In the twentieth century, psychiatric theories like Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic ideas were what brandished the wings for psychopharmacology to take off. In the twenty-first century, who knows what fruits the roots of psychopharmacology will bear fruition to. 

References

American Psychoanalytic Association. (n.d.). About Psychoanalysis – American Psychoanalytic Association. American Psychoanalytic Association. Retrieved December 28, 2025, from https://apsa.org/about-psychoanalysis/#toggle-id-1

Braslow JT, Marder SR. History of Psychopharmacology. Annu Rev Clin Psychol. 2019 May 7;15:25-50. doi: 10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-050718-095514. Epub 2019 Feb 20. PMID: 30786241.

Brauer, R., Alfageh, B., Blias, J. E., Chan, E. W., Chui, C. S. L., Hayes, J. F., Man, K. K. C., Lau, W. C. Y., Yan, V. K. C., Beykloo, M. Y., Wang, Z., Wei, L., & Wong, I. C. K. (2021, 12 1). Psychotropic medicine consumption in 65 countries and regions, 2008–19: a longitudinal study. The Lancet Psychiatry, 8(12). 10.1016/S2215-0366(21)00292-3

Crowley, R. (2023, August 14). What Is Pharmacology? | National Institute of General Medical Sciences. National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Retrieved December 28, 2025, from https://nigms.nih.gov/biobeat/2023/08/what-is-pharmacology

Evolve's Behavioral Health Content Team. (2024, March 8). History of Drugs: From Past to Present | Evolve. Evolve Treatment Centers. Retrieved December 28, 2025, from https://evolvetreatment.com/blog/history-drug-use/

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Morris, I. (2022, 2 3). Psychopharmacology seeks to close gaps for Americans in need. TheChicagoSchool. Retrieved 1 4, 2026, from https://www.thechicagoschool.edu/insight/psychology/psychopharmacology-seeks-to-close-gaps-for-americans-in-need/

Robinson E. Psychopharmacology: From serendipitous discoveries to rationale design, but what next? Brain Neurosci Adv. 2018 Nov 22;2:2398212818812629. doi: 10.1177/2398212818812629. PMID: 32166162; PMCID: PMC7058199.

Wikipedia Foundation. (2005). Psychopharmacology - Wikipedia. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved December 28, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopharmacology