The psychopharmacological era: notes toward a history.

Cultural and economic influences on the psychopharmacological era are reviewed, in an attempt to bring into focus what has been happening in psychopharmacology for the past thirty years. It is argued that the belief that clinical advances are made through the heroic achievements of disinterested scientists is a simplistic view that may militate against future significant discoveries. Such discoveries, it is argued, still come about for the most part serendipitously, despite a widespread belief that psychopharmacology has become a rational science.