Chemical Imbalance Myth

“Psychiatric drugs have often been prescribed to patients on the basis that they cure a ‘chemical imbalance’. However, no chemical imbalances have been proven to exist in relation to any mental health disorder. There is also no method available to test for the presence or absence of these chemical imbalances.” Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry

Why do psychiatrists continue to treat emotional problems biologically, (with medications), despite the chemical imbalance theory being debunked, as well as international warnings that these drugs can cause violence, suicide, psychosis, mania, heart attacks, and even sudden death?

“The legend of the ‘chemical imbalance’ should be consigned to the dust-bin of ill-informed and malicious caricatures” Dr. R. Pies, Former Editor of the Psychiatric Times.

Although academic research has debunked the chemical imbalance theory, the public still desperately hangs on to it, as do many physicians. The aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies of medication that can ‘fix’ so-called ‘chemical imbalances’ has led the general population to believe in this theory. Supposedly ‘independent studies’ were used to support the effectiveness of the medications and these studies were published in respected medical journals making it easier to market the drugs to psychiatrists. A Canadian study reviewed the amount spent on marketing by the pharmaceutical companies and found it to be almost double that spent on research. Dr. Joanna Moncrieff, Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry at University College of London, said: “It is high time that it was stated clearly that the serotonin imbalance theory of depression is not supported by the scientific evidence or by expert opinion. Through misleading publicity the pharmaceutical industry has helped to ensure that most of the general public is unaware of this” MedicalNewsToday.

One aspect of the chemical imbalance theory claims that people suffering from depression have low serotonin and dopamine levels, however, research has shown that these levels appear to be normal. Furthermore, research is now revealing that psychiatric medications are capable of changing the ‘normal’ brain of emotionally distressed people.

Professor Irving Kirsch, did placebo studies with anti-depressants, finding the success rate with these medications to be negligible when compared to that of placebos. His studies also found that in the long term those not taking anti-depressants during their depression showed higher levels of long term functioning. “The results of decades of neurotransmitter-depletion studies point to one inescapable conclusion, low levels of serotonin, norepinephrine or dopamine do not cause depression” The Emperor’s New Drugs by Prof. Irving Kirsch (Associate Director of the Program in Placebo Studies and lecturer at Harvard Medical School).

In May 2013, the American National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) announced that it was longer supporting the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), commonly known as the bible of psychiatry. “Unlike our definitions of heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnosis are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure” TR. Insel, M.D., Director of NIMH.

“A simplistic biological reductionism has increasingly ruled the psychiatric roost… [we have] learned to attribute mental illness to faulty brain biochemistry, defects of dopamine, or a shortage of serotonin. It is biobabble as deeply misleading and unscientific as the psychobabble it replaced” Professor Andrew Skull, Princeton University.  

We in the West have created a ‘quick fix’ culture where popping a pill to get better has become the norm, as science and medicine have become our gods. By seeing emotional problems through a scientific or medical lens, we absolve ourselves from taking responsibility for our mental health and putting in the required effort to make the necessary changes in our lives or alternatively learning to accept what appears to be unchangeable.