It’s in all the papers, so it must be true
An interesting article from Psych Central News charges the media with disseminating the “chemical imbalance” nonsense theory of mental illness:
…there are few scientists who will rise to its defense, and some prominent psychiatrists publicly acknowledge that the serotonin hypothesis is more metaphor than fact. As the current study documents, when asked for evidence, reporters were unable to cite peer-reviewed primary articles in support of the theory.
As someone who’s spent significant time with mentally ill people (Patients! At work! Really!) I’ve consistently failed to find a reason to believe there’s a bio-chemical cause for mental illness. It simply fails the logic tests as well as violating everything I’ve been able to learn about neurology. The idea that there’s one simple thing behind such complex and varied behavior is just, well, simplistic. Financially lucrative if you manufacture drugs, but not justifiable.
Full article at: Biochemical Roots of Depression Challenged