what medication is effective in treating paranoia?
Paranoia is usually treated with antipsychotic drugs which have a tranquillising effect and aim to reduce paranoid feelings. Other forms of treatment are known as talking treatments; these include counselling, cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and psychotherapy. If a person is very distressed, they may be admitted to hospital for treatment. People are usually encouraged to go to hospital as voluntary patients, but sometimes if someone’s behaviour is very disturbed, they can be admitted to hospital against their will under the Mental Health Act 1983. The atypical antipsychotic agents, sometimes called the “novel” antipsychotic agents are a group of drugs which are different chemically from the older drugs used to treat psychosis. The “conventional” antipsychotic drugs are classified by their chemical structures as the phenothiazines, thioxanthines (which are chemically very similar to the phenothiazines), butyrophenones, diphenylbutylpiperadines and the indolones. All of the atypical an
