Frank J. Ayd Jr., M.D.
Below is a clip from an article in the January 2005 Psychiatric Times about a person who was instrumental in turning psychiatry in the biological direction. If anyone knows how I can get hold of this episode of the old show "Medical Horizons", I would be very grateful. I want to know if there are lobomized children in it.
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In the early years of biological psychiatry, Ayd said many pioneers were ridiculed and denigrated by colleagues faithful to psychodynamic concepts on the etiology of psychiatric disorders.
It was a challenge to convince them "that we weren't crazy, and I really mean that" he said. He tells the story of how in the mid-1950s, he was contacted by a producer-director of the television series Medical Horizons, which was telecast on ABC. The series focused on medical dramatizations and stories on specific diseases and treatments for patients. Ayd was asked to help put together a show on psychiatry. He arranged for several health care professionals and some patients to talk about lobotomies, psychotherapies, pharmacological advances and electroshock. The show was live, and the crew had to run wires up two blocks from Ayd's office to the local television station in order to transmit the show.
"We talked about the use of medications, such as the early antipsychotics, Thorazine and perphenazine [Trilafon]. We had a patient who had had a lobotomy and a nice recovery. She was interviewed. There were children interviewed. An elderly woman had had ECT, and she and her family talked about what a help ECT had been," he recalled.
As part of the show, Ayd demonstrated ECT.
"I gave this woman a muscle relaxant medication, and they [the television crew] photographed her as she was given ECT. All that showed was some tremor in her hands," Ayd said. Afterward, many people accused Ayd of faking the ECT treatment, since the woman did not exhibit violent convulsions, common with ECT during that time period.
The show's producer-director arranged to have a reception at a downtown hotel and invited a couple hundred people, including members of the Maryland Psychiatric Society and the Maryland Medical Association, according to Ayd.
"No more than five people showed [for the reception], and they were all analysts," said Ayd, acknowledging that many of the psychiatric leaders in Maryland had boycotted him.
Although psychopharmacology in recent years has come to the foreground, Ayd does not agree with throwing psychoanalysis and psychotherapy out the window. "You are treating a human being, and you have to take into consideration the requirements of that human being."
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In the early years of biological psychiatry, Ayd said many pioneers were ridiculed and denigrated by colleagues faithful to psychodynamic concepts on the etiology of psychiatric disorders.
It was a challenge to convince them "that we weren't crazy, and I really mean that" he said. He tells the story of how in the mid-1950s, he was contacted by a producer-director of the television series Medical Horizons, which was telecast on ABC. The series focused on medical dramatizations and stories on specific diseases and treatments for patients. Ayd was asked to help put together a show on psychiatry. He arranged for several health care professionals and some patients to talk about lobotomies, psychotherapies, pharmacological advances and electroshock. The show was live, and the crew had to run wires up two blocks from Ayd's office to the local television station in order to transmit the show.
"We talked about the use of medications, such as the early antipsychotics, Thorazine and perphenazine [Trilafon]. We had a patient who had had a lobotomy and a nice recovery. She was interviewed. There were children interviewed. An elderly woman had had ECT, and she and her family talked about what a help ECT had been," he recalled.
As part of the show, Ayd demonstrated ECT.
"I gave this woman a muscle relaxant medication, and they [the television crew] photographed her as she was given ECT. All that showed was some tremor in her hands," Ayd said. Afterward, many people accused Ayd of faking the ECT treatment, since the woman did not exhibit violent convulsions, common with ECT during that time period.
The show's producer-director arranged to have a reception at a downtown hotel and invited a couple hundred people, including members of the Maryland Psychiatric Society and the Maryland Medical Association, according to Ayd.
"No more than five people showed [for the reception], and they were all analysts," said Ayd, acknowledging that many of the psychiatric leaders in Maryland had boycotted him.
Although psychopharmacology in recent years has come to the foreground, Ayd does not agree with throwing psychoanalysis and psychotherapy out the window. "You are treating a human being, and you have to take into consideration the requirements of that human being."
posted by Christine at Thursday, February 17, 2005
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