title: Psychology and pharmacology in the treatment of anxiety disorders: co-operation or confrontation.
abstract: 5-HT(3) and cholecystokinin receptor antagonists with anxiolytic properties threaten a further round of the 'tranquilizers or treatment' debate. Tricyclic antidepressants have been shown to enhance the effect of exposure therapy upon agoraphobic patients, and it can be argued that the therapeutic success of cognitive therapy in the treatment of anxiety disorders depends upon guided exposure to threatening situations. A consideration of the effects of agents already in use for the treatment of anxiety, and experimental and neuroanatomical findings, suggests that pathological anxiety might well include relatively independent abnormalities of autonomic regulation and psychological reactivity. Proper evaluation of these new compounds is therefore going to require careful evaluation of their cognitive and behavioural effects, as well as their physiology. This work should, therefore, draw the contributions of clinical pharmacology and clinical psychology closer together rather than drive them further apart.
authors.affiliation: Cambridge University Department of Psychiatry, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Hills Rd, Cambridge CB2 2QQ, UK.
authors.forename: H C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Middleton