“A theory that is wrong is considered preferable to admitting our ignorance.” – Elliot Vallenstein, Ph.D.
Beyond Meds and anyone who’s actually paid attention to the science for the last many years has known that the serotonin myth about depression and how antidepressants work has no evidence to back it up whatsoever.
Embracing this critique doesn’t mean there is no biological factor to such that which gets labeled mental illness…we are holistic beings, so of course there is biology involved too. What it means is the answer does not lie in the biological reductionism that psychiatry most often espouses and makes up stories about. Everything matters. Until we start attending to the individual as part of the whole of life, intertwined with everyone and everything, we’ll continue to harm.
This page 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:
● The chemical imbalance myth (mental health): by Chris Kresser
● “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
● Do psychiatrists understand psychiatric drugs?
● Psych drugs and brain injury, antipsychotics and brain shrinkage