Psychoanalysis as functionalist social science: the legacy of Freud's 'Project for a scientific psychology'.

The paper links Freud's early work in the 'Project for a scientific psychology' with the psychoanalytic psychology of Kleinian object relations theory now current. Freud is often accused of introducing mechanism into his psychology and installing at its core an irreconcilable dichotomy of two disparate ways of explaining human behaviour. I suggest that Freud's early mechanistic thinking is an attempt at what he only partly achieves, a functional account of the 'mental apparatus'. I consider whether this way of conceptualising the mind in functional terms is methodologically relevant to psychoanalytic investigation or whether it is at best heuristically useful. From a brief consideration of Kleinian object relations theory, illustrated by case material, I conclude that there are grounds for accepting the first of these alternatives.

The effect of amitriptyline treatment on the growth hormone response to apomorphine.

The growth hormone response to subcutaneous administration of the dopamine agonist apomorphine (0.005 mg/kg) was assessed in six normal male subjects before and at the end of a course of amitriptyline. Amitriptyline treatment significantly reduced the growth hormone response to apomorphine, confirming the findings of an earlier study in depressed patients. The way in which amitriptyline attenuates the effect of apomorphine is not clear. Direct blockade of dopamine receptors in the hypothalamus is a possibility, but long-term amitriptyline treatment could result in adaptive changes in the monoamine pathways which control GH release.

Visual hallucinations due to indomethacin: a case report.

Visual hallucinations may be caused by organic cerebral lesions and by drugs including indomethacin. We report here a case of indomethacin-induced visual hallucinations in which a clear description of the phenomenology shows how a complex hallucinatory experience may arise from the relatively non-specific effects of cerebral irritation.

Neuroendocrine tests during treatment with neuroleptic drugs. II. The TRH test.

Anterior pituitary response to TRH 200 micrograms i.v. was studied in ten chronic schizophrenic patients during long-term neuroleptic treatment. Nine patients had normal prolactin (PRL) response as compared with controls but in one the response was blunted; one patient had an exaggerated response. Prolactin increment was higher following TRH than haloperidol challenge. No growth hormone (GH) response to TRH was found and TSH responses were comparable to controls.

Plasma melatonin during desmethylimipramine treatment: evidence for changes in noradrenergic transmission.

Plasma melatonin was used to determine overall beta-adrenergic transmission through pineal neuro-effector junctions during desmethylimipramine (DMI) treatment in 10 normal subjects. Changes in plasma melatonin indicated that an initial increase in noradrenaline (NA) transmission produced by DMI was counteracted by adaptive changes which restored transmission to normal by the third week of treatment. A 'rebound' increase in NA transmission was seen on DMI withdrawal. The results suggest that the adaptive changes which occur in NA synapses during DMI treatment do not, as has been proposed, decrease NA transmission below normal levels, but instead restore homeostasis in the presence of the drug.