[Actual knowledge on beta blocking agents in psychiatry (author's transl)].

A new group of substances blocking central beta receptors, ie beta blocking agents among which oxprenol and pindolol, have been used in psychiatry, mainly in anxious or depressive-anxious patients. The anxiolytic effect, particularly on somatic anxiety, is interesting, and is present in double blind studies with benzodiazepines, where it is superior to these classical agents. The author has observed this therapeutic activity in series of one hundred patients and also a dynamising effect in some of these patients. Without having observed by himself and possibly because of the low doses experimented, the author states that these drugs have an antipsychotic activity.