Controversy is King! When it comes to the prescription of psycho-pharmaceuticals or other psychiatric treatment, opinions tend to clash. The left are reminded – as Regine Aeppli, Councillor of Zurich and Director of Education pointed out in her talk during the fourth round of talks on "Debating science culture" – of times when socially uncomfortable men and women were taken out of circulation and deprived of their autonomy. Movies have made this chillingly clear with electro-shocks and lobotomies in films like Milos Forman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", the use of chemical "truth" drugs in spy films or the "CIA's secret drug trials" on which Egmund R. Koch and Michael Wech recently reported in the TV documentary "Codename Artichoke" on the German channel ARD. Nowadays "behaviourally original" children and teenagers are treated with "Ritalin", a drug which turns the hyperactive prodigy into the nice girl or boy next door. "Drugs aren't all bad," says Regine Aeppli, but one should be quite clear about their specific use. "Parents and schools must assume their responsibilities."

"Parents and schools must assume their responsibilities," says Regine Aeppli, Councillor of Zurich and Director of Education. large

Psychiatric practices and treatments endanger psychiatry itself when a single dimension and unbounded immoderation predominate, opines Daniel Hell, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of Zurich and medical director of the Psychiatric University Clinic Zurich.

Daniel Hell (right): The psychiatric professor whose dissertation was on the subject of cannabis consumption. Today he concerns himself with psycho-pharmaceutical drugs. large

Ritalin: "Behaviourally original" children are treated with this drug. Picture: Novartis large

Whenever psycho-pharmaceuticals are prescribed the treatment must be accompanied by a doctor. By the same token, biographical and cultural values of the patient must be reflected in the concept of treatment. "Psychiatry is well advised not to limit itself to biological-medical aspects," says Daniel Hell.

The arguments that Hanns Möhler, Professor of Pharmacology at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich brings forward take roughly the same direction. "The focus must be on human beings. If hyperactive children are labelled as troublesome, then we've made a mistake – and we can't blame pharmaceuticals for this mistake." This is why Möhler makes an earnest appeal to patients, saying that they should not "hand over the responsibility of their lives to drugs."

"All just a mind-body problem?" Historian Barbara Orland takes a look back into the history of philosophy. large

As diverse as the presented opinions were, a real debate reflecting strongly opposing positions did not take off after the addresses from Regine Aeppli, Daniel Hell and Hanns Möhler; there was too much consensus in the individual statements. This was not changed by the talk that followed from Barbara Orland, head assistant at the ETH Institute of History. She delved into history, illustrating and criticising pharmaceutical therapy from a philosophical point of view, and concluded that too much weight was given in current research to neuro-scientific findings. The historian did not address the issue of just why the science of psycho-pharmaceuticals is dominated today by neurobiology.

The discussion gained in dynamic after the 30-minute "Think-and-Drink" break with an intervention from Georg Schönbächler from the ETH Institute of Pharmaceutical Science. Interpolations were then delivered by two people from the audience, both former psychiatric patients who had undergone many years of treatment. One of them criticised the fact that universities were only concerned with suffering and derangement and the second that the doses of drugs prescribed by psychiatrists were too high and given without regard to possible long-term consequences. At this point a number of participants intervened and said that a treatment with drugs was always initiated and accompanied by a doctor, and that older drugs had been replaced by modern, more efficient products. A participant calls out, "We are heading for a catastrophe, the discussion is leading to an ideological impasse," and endeavours to lead the discussion back to the theme of the evening, namely "The self-positioning of science using the example of the debate on the use of psycho-pharmaceutical drugs in psychiatric medicine".