Abstract

Volume.122 Number.6

Psychological Concerns over the Expansion of Pharmacotherapy in Psychiatry: An Essay in Reference to the Ethical Debate on Neuroenhancement
Eisuke SAKAKIBARA
Department of Neuropsychiatry, The University of Tokyo Hospital

The number of prescriptions of antidepressants and psychostimulants has been increasing these days. This expansion includes the pharmacotherapy for anxiety and neurodevelopmental disorders, for which the distinction between normality and pathology is ambiguous. To elucidate the problems associated with the expansion of pharmacotherapy for these disorders, the ethical debates on neuroenhancement-applying biomedical technologies to improve cognitive or emotional capacities beyond therapeutic purposes-is helpful, because neuroenhancement is continuous with the treatment of these disorders. Regarding this phenomenon, there are three perspectives of concern: biological, psychological, and sociological. This paper focuses on the psychological concerns over the expansion of pharmacotherapy in psychiatry. In this paper, I grouped the psychological concerns about neuroenhancement into three issues; psychotropic medication might 1) destruct one's authenticity, 2) trivialize humanity, and 3) undermine one's virtues. In the light of these discussions, we can point out that the introduction of pharmacotherapy transforms the moral practice of controlling one's action by cultivating one's temperament and managing one's natural emotions into a new form of practice that incorporates the use of psychotropic medications.
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Key words
medical ethics, enhancement, psychotropic drugs, pharmacotherapy