It's a short-acting anxiolytic.. I wouldn't want to pile on a lot of it daily, although it really does not have much of the drowsiness of some of the other TCA antihistamines.. in fact, substitute chlorine for bromine and you have brompheniramine, which morphed into zimelidine, the first SSRI.. it's all on wikipedia and in literature)..

But really the longer term efficacy of it is for depression and through that mechanism, just like imipramine, sertraline, etc. it is a long-term anxiolytic with the added benefit of working as a sedative even on the first dose.

There are no known reports I have come across detailing any sort of withdrawal syndrome, and it's enough of a putative effect that msot doctors will agree, and some even give -prescriptions- for 12-hour chlorpheniramine.

Really interesting stuff.. I think about this a lot, every time I read about a new potential blockbuster that was 'inferior to imipramine in phase III trials'.