Underlying the design of the Handbook of Psychopharmacology is a prejudice that the study of drug influences on the mind has advanced to a stage where basic research and clinical application truly mesh. These later volumes of the Handbook are structured according to this conception. In certain volumes, groups of drugs are treated as classes with chapters ranging from basic chemistry to clinical application. Other volumes are assembled around topic areas such as anxiety or affective disorders. Thus, besides chapters on individual drug classes, we have included essays addressing broad areas...

It is difficult to imagine an era in which there were no selective drugs for treating anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and other mental ailments. Yet in a remarkably short time these drugs have come to occupy a position of prominence in medical practice throughout the world, and they now account for a major portion of all prescriptions. Most psychotropic drugs were discovered with little premeditation on the part of the inves tigator. The drugs simply "worked," often with little rationale, and psychopharmacology has been for many years an empirical discipline in search of scientific...