Anxiety disorders and major depression, together or apart

This paper will discuss the relationship between anxiety and depression. I' ve will begin with a brief historical perspective. We will then move into t he twentieth century, with a focus on the 1950s, at which time the introduc tion of pharmacological treatment options revolutionized the field of psych iatry. The use of psychiatric medications and the observation of treatment response provided an additional means of understanding the relationship bet ween anxiety and depression. From the late 1970s to the 1990s, it became ap parent that various medications possessed wider therapeutic profiles than w ere previously recognized. For example, many medications were found to be e fficacious in both anxiety and depressive disorders. These expanded therape utic profiles provided additional clues to fuel our thinking about the rela tionship between anxiety and depression. The two major objectives of this p aper are, first, to describe and formalize a process of pharmacological dis section and, second, to consider how this process might contribute to our s earch for a better understanding of the relationship between anxiety and de pression. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.