Myths about Depression and PsychoPharma

From David Healy MDs article: Psychiatry Gone Astray

Ten Myths about Depression and PsychoPharmacology:

Myth 1: Your disease is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain

2: It’s no problem to stop treatment with antidepressants

3: Psychotropic Drugs for Mental Illness are like Insulin for Diabetes

4: Psychotropic drugs reduce the number of chronically ill patients

5: Happy pills do not cause suicide in children and adolescents

6: Happy pills have no side effects

7: Happy pills are not addictive

8: The prevalence of depression has increased a lot

9: The main problem is not overtreatment, but undertreatment

Myth 10: Antipsychotics prevent brain damage

Read the explanation of each myth: Psychiatry Gone Astray

More info from Beyond Meds: Chemical imbalance myth and biopsychiatry links — has a collection of links that speak particularly to the idea that mental illness is NOT best explained via a chemical imbalance in the brain

and

• SSRI and antidepressant info
• Reframe depression

MORE links that speak particularly to the idea that mental illness is NOT best explained via a chemical imbalance in the brain:

•  The chemical imbalance myth (mental health): by Chris Kresser
• Chemical imbalance myth takes a big public fall (no, antidepressants do NOT correct an imbalance of serotonin, nor do other psychiatric drugs correct anything at all)
• Depression is not a disease
• “The chemical imbalance theory of mental disorders was disproven long ago”
•  Bipolar Medication Myths — Joanna Moncrieff MD
•  An Interview with Joanna Moncrieff: The Myth of the Chemical Cure
• Biopsychiatry: a critique
• Do psychiatrists understand psychiatric drugs?


• Psych drugs and brain injury, antipsychotics and brain shrinkage

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