Thomas McGlashan

Dr. Thomas McGlashan (born 1942) is a professor of psychiatry at Yale University. According to the New York Times, May 23, 2006, McGlashan "strived for years to master psychoanalysis, only to reject it outright after demonstrating, in a landmark 1984 study, that the treatment did not help much at all in people ... with schizophrenia."

Disappointed with psychoanalysis, Dr. McGlashan then studied the benefits of antipsychotic medical drugs. In the 1990s he embarked on a study the effect of such drugs in preventing psychosis in adolescents at high risk. In May 2006, McGlashan reported that "the drugs were more likely to induce weight gain than to produce a significant, measurable benefit." The study did report that the drug Olanzapine had a "nearly significant" effect in preventing conversion to psychosis and that further, larger studies are warranted. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16648318 McGlashan, TH, Zipursky, RH, Perkins, D, et al. (2006). Randomized, Double-Blind Trial of Olanzapine Versus Placebo in Patients Prodromally Symptomatic for Psychosis. The American journal of psychiatry, 163(5), 790-799. ] , Full article requires subscription.]

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