TOWARDS AN EDUCATION IN THE HISTORY OF NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY

Part 6: Interviews with Pioneers

By the mid-1990s, the pioneer generation of neuropsychopharmacologists was fading away. To preserve their legacy, Oakley Ray, at the time Secretary of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), generated funds from Solway Pharmaceuticals for the founding of the ACNP-Solway Archives in Neuropsychopharmacology. Ray also arranged for the videotaping of peer-interviews with the pioneers, to be stored at the archives. The endeavor that was to become known as the “oral history project” was gradually extended to include videotaped interviews with members of the pioneering generation of the College, and later also with non-members, who contributed to the development of the field.

The 235 videotaped interviews conducted and transcribed in the oral history project were first separated on the basis of the subject matter covered in the interviews, then edited into a ten volumes series that was published, in 2011, with the title An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology  (OHN)  by the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology  (Ban 2011a; Blackwell 2011 a,b; Fink 2011, Katz 2011; Kleber 2011; Levine 2011; Salzman 2011; Sulser 2011). Three years later, in 2014, the 66 interviews from the series conducted by Ban, and the 34 interviews conducted by Leo E. Holliser were edited into two additional volumes by Peter R. Martin, and posted in INHN’s Educational E-Book series, with the titles Reflections on the History of Neuropsychopharmacology Through the Interviews of Thomas A. Ban and Reflections  on the History of Neuropsychopharmacology Through the Interviews of Leo E. Hollister, respectively (Martin 2014a, b).

In the information overload in the early years of the 21st century created by the online accessibility of virtually all information that is not protected by patent or copyright, authentic primary sources are often indistinguishable from inaccurate or trivial information. By presenting first-hand accounts of their research from first-generation of neuropsychopharmacologists in the form of videotaped interviews, OHN provides a guide to recover the historical record from the flood of non-replicable research reports and time-bound reviews contaminated by reviewers’ biases (Ban 2011b). Similar to David Healy’s three-volume series, The Psychopharmacologists which includes the edited transcripts of audiotaped interviews with 78 psychopharmacologists selected for their significant contributions to the development of the field, and to Thomas A. Ban, David Healy and Edward Shorter’s  four-volume series,  The History of Psychopharmacology and the CINP, As Told inAutobiography, which includes the autobiographical accounts of about 250 leaders of psychopharmacology from more than 50 countries, OHN offers historians reliable material for reconstructing the early history (first fifty years) of neuropsychopharmacology (Ban, Healy and Shorter 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004; Healy 1996, 1998, 2000).

The objective of INHN’s Interviews with Pioneers program is to contribute to the educational material of the Network by complementing the already available firsthand accounts with firsthand accounts from pioneers who were not included in the three series. Another objective of the Program is to integrate the information generated in this new set of firsthand accounts with the information in INHN’s other projects and programs. In order to achieve its objective, the Program, directed by Leonardo Tondo will post first the transcripts of a new set of audiotaped interviews conducted by Condo. Then, each posted interview will be discussed, and finally the information in the interviews that is not already available on INHN’s website will be added to the already available information in INHNs various educational projects.

REFERENCES    

Ban TA, editor.  (Editor).  An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology .The First Fifty Years Peer Interviews. (Volumes 1-10). Nashville: American College of Neuropsyhopharmacolgy; 2011a.

Ban TA, Overview of the series. In: Ban TA, editor.  An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology .The First Fifty Years. Peer Interviews. (Volumes 1).. Nashville: American College of Neuropsyhopharmacolgy; 2011b, Ix-XJV.

Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors. The Rise  of Psychopharmacology and the Story of CINP. Budapest: Animula; 1998. 

Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors. The Triumph of Psychopharmacology and the Story of CINP. Budapest: Animula; 2000.

Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors. From Psychopharmacology to Neuropsychopharmacology and the Story of CINP. Budapest: Animula; 2002.

Ban TA, Healy D, Shorter E, editors.Reflections on Twentieth-Century Psychopharmacology.  Budapest: Animula; 2004.

Blackwell B, editor. Special Areas. In: Ban TA, editor. An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology - The First Fifty Years: Peer Interviews (Volume 7). Nashville: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; 2011a.. 

Blackwell B, editor. Neuropharmacology. In: Ban TA, editor. An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology - The First Fifty Years: Peer Interviews (Volume 9). Nashville: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; 2011b..  

Fink E, editor. Beurophysiology. In: Ban TA, editor. An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology - The First Fifty Years: Peer Interviews (Volume 1). Nashville: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; 2011. 

Gershon S,, editor. Neuropsychopharmacology. In: Ban TA, editor. An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology - The First Fifty Years: Peer Interviews (Volume 5). Nashville: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; 2011.

Healy D. The Psychopharmacologists. Interviews by David Healy. London: Altman; 1996.

Healy D. The Psychopharmacologists II. Interviews by David Healy. London: Altman; 1998.

Healy D. The Psychopharmacologists III. Interviews by David Healy. London: Arnold; 2000.

Katz MM, editor.History of the ACNP. In: Ban TA, editor. An Oral History of Neurophopharmacology - The First Fifty Yea rs: Peer Interviews (Volume 10).  Nashville: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; 2011.

Kleber H, editor. Addiction..In: Ban TA, editor. An Oral History of Neurophopharmacology - The First Fifty Years: Peer Interviews (Volume 6). Nashville: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; 2011.

Levine J, editor. Psychopharmacology. In: Ban TA, editor. An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology - The First Fifty Years: Peer Interviews (Volume 4). Nashville: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; 2011.  

Salzman C, editor. Diverse Topics. In: Ban TA, editor. An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology - The First Fifty Years: Peer Interviews (Volume 8). Nashville: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; 2011.  

Shorter E, editor. Starting Up.. In: Ban TA, editor. An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology - The First Fifty Years: Peer Interviews (Volume 1).. Nashville: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; 2011.  

Sulser F, editor. Neuropharmacology. In: Ban TA, editor. An Oral History of Neuropsychopharmacology - The First Fifty Years: Peer Interviews (Volume 3). Nashville: American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; 2011.  

Thomas A. Ban
October 15, 2015