Psychosomatic Medicine 10:230-237 (1948)
© 1948 American Psychosomatic Society

Dibenamine Therapy in Certain Psychopathologic Syndromes

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College, and the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic of the New York Hospital

This paper presents the results of an investigation of the therapeutic uses of a sympatholytic drug, Dibenamine (N, N dibenzyl-beta-chloro-ethylamine). The work is based on the premise that the emotions of anxiety, fear, panic, resentment, and anger are accompanied by the presence in the blood of increased amounts of adrenergic substances. It was further assumed that the increased concentrations of circulating adrenergic substances play a role in the production of certain symptoms and are of themselves detrimental to the patient.

Patients chosen for treatment with Dibenamine were those in whom anxiety, fear, panic, resentment, or anger, or the derivatives of these emotions were prominent or leading features in the psychopathology. To date about 50 patients have been treated. In any case in which the author and his colleagues followed accurately their own stated criteria for selection, the oral administration of Dibenamine has been of some therapeutic benefit. The degree of therapeutic effectiveness has ranged from very mild to very marked. There are a number of different ways in which Dibenamine has proved to be a valuable adjunct to psychotherapy, and these are illustrated in the paper by appropriate case presentations.

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