Treatment of Tourette syndrome
Tourette syndrome (also Tourette's syndrome or TS) is an inherited neuropsychiatric disorder with onset in childhood, characterized by the presence of motor and phonic tics. Treatment of Tourette syndrome has the goal of managing symptoms to achieve optimum functioning, rather than eliminating symptoms; not all persons with Tourette's require treatment, and there is no cure or universally effective medication. Explanation and reassurance alone are often sufficient treatment; education is an important part of any treatment plan.
Arthur K. Shapiro
Until the early 1970s, the preferred intervention for Tourette syndrome was psychoanalysis. Shapiro wanted to prove that Tourette's was an organic disorder, and that psychotherapy was not the treatment of choice. "The turning point in the diagnosis and treatment of Tourette Syndrome occurred in 1965", when Dr. Shapiro and his wife, Elaine Schlaffer Shapiro (Ph.D.), treated a patient with haloperidol (Haldol). The Shapiros reported the treatment in a 1968 article, published by the "British Journal of Psychiatry", after it was rejected by American journals. The paper "severely criticized" the psychoanalytic approach, which had endured throughout the previous century, to treating the condition.