Antipsychotics

   Antipsychotics represent a class of drug for the treatment of psychotic illness, particularly in schizophrenia. They are also known as "neuroleptics" and were previously called "major tranquilizers" and "ataractics." (See Chlorpromazine and the phenothiazine class of antipsychotics.)

   Heinz Lehmann coined the term "antipsychotic" in 1961 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal: "Antipsychotic drugs are defined as pharmacological agents which have a therapeutic effect on symptoms of a specifically psychotic nature, such symptoms as hallucinations, paranoid delusions or the autistic thought disorder which is present in many patients with schizophrenia" (p. 1145).