AO3

• A strength of biological therapies is that they can be used in order to make psychological therapies more effective. Antipsychotics are used in hospital situations to calm people with schizophrenia and make them easier for staff to work with. Calming people distressed by hallucinations and delusions probably makes them feel better and allows them to engage with other treatments such as CBT. There are clear benefits to using antipsychotics and an alternative to better support the patient.
• Another limitation of antipsychotics is that we do not know why they work. The use of most of them is tied to the dopamine hypothesis. But there is evidence that this may not be correct and that dopamine levels in other parts of the brain are too low rather than too high. If so, most antipsychotics shouldn't work. This means that antipsychotics may not be the best treatment to opt for, perhaps some other factor is involved in their apparent success.
• A limitation of antipsychotics is the likelihood of side effects. Typical antipsychotics are associated with dizziness, agitation, sleepiness and weight gain. Long-term use can lead to lip smacking and grimacing due to dopamine super sensitivity. The more serious side effect is neuroleptic malignant syndrome caused by blocking dopamine action in the hypothalamus. This can be fatal due to disrupted regulation of several body systems. This means that antipsychotics can do harm as well as good and individuals may avoid them, thus reducing the effectiveness.
• A strength is that there is supporting evidence. Thornley et al reviewed data from 13 trials and found that chlorpromazine was associated with better functioning and reduced symptom severity compared to a placebo. There is also support for the benefits of atypical antipsychotics. Meltzer concluded that clozapine is more effective than typical antipsychotics and that it is effective in 30 to 50 percent of treatment-resistant cases. This means that as far as we can tell antipsychotics work.