Science Isn't Golden

Thanks for calling it out. I'm both psychiatrically critical and lean liberal myself and argue constantly with fellow liberals on the blind adherence to the structural propaganda. I believe the liberal mindset concerning neurotransmission is rooted in the contemporary rationalist/atheist/climate change protest movement; in short shallow scientism.

Reality-based liberals are engaged in protracted partisan battle over climate change, atheism and rationalism; from there it's but a short step to the seductions of "neuroscience." It's tribalism; aligning with the smart set.

Of course the chemical imbalance theory was supposedly a huge step forward for mental health, and we love that, we're "progressives." There you go.

He notes that uncertainty itself can be harmful to people, so that "clear, simple explanations are so very important."

In other words, the message I'm getting from Dr. Delgado is, "I doctor, you patient. You stupid."

The other people who are still clinging to the outdated chemical imbalance theory tend to be parents, and the liberal media and the medical profession are only too happy to oblige them. After all, if these psychiatric disorders are NOT the result of chemical imbalance in the brain, then trauma, as a possible cause of mental suffering, is back on the table. Most parents don't want to go there. It's politically incorrect for the people who like "simple explanations" to imply that the family environment may be imbalanced.

Excellent post. Thank you.

Rossa hits the nail on the head. So long as chemical imbalances cause depression, anxiety and other "illnesses" then the problem isn't in the home. Blame a chemical imbalance and medicate someone until they just don't feel depressed.
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But there exists a problem with this model. Aside from the too-obvious-to-bother-mentioning ethical concerns, that is. Medicating away the feelings of anxiety or depression doesn't fix the cause. If Mom didn't pay sufficient attention or Dad was mean; if love was conditional on academic or sports success; if your family was distant and conditioned you to feel alone and unloved; medication doesn't make this go away. Sure you don't feel depressed. But the issues remain, and they often come to light much later in life.
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I would speculate that medication does more harm than good at this point. Society is being medicated into oblivion. Which progressives love, since happily medicated people are more easily manipulated. After all, if you feel happy what could possibly be wrong, right?

I had all kinds of side effects from taking anti-depressants several years ago (naturally, as you mention, it was not my initial idea to take them). But because of the lack of mental health improvement, I look back on how these side effects as not just annoying and damaging, but sort of insulting.

I have had side effects from all kinds of drugs, but I see the anti-depressants differently.

The antibiotic that upset my stomach but healed an infection - I can accept the upset stomach.

The antihistamine that gives me dry mouth but has made a world of difference for my allergies - the dry mouth isn't so bad.

The birth control pill that cleared up all kinds of issues for me but made me gain 10 pounds - eh, I can work on losing 10 pounds.

The other difference with all of these is that I was in a place to make my own choice about them. When you're depressed or something else, you don't feel up to challenging the advice to use them.

I've been through around 10 years of psychiatric 'treatment.' This includes being forcibly admitted to a mental hospital two times in five years, and taking Lexapro, Zyprexa and Buspar for a number of years -- even a beta blocker at one point to help with anxiety.

I don't remember how many years I was on those drugs but I stopped several years ago. I still go to a psychiatrist (begrudgingly) but refuse medication, and continue to research alternative health and nutrition (in my opinion, they're one and the same).

I cut myself for a number of years, the first number of times cutting just my face. I know what it's like to be suicidal and have struggled with suicidal issues for almost all of my life that I can remember. I was abused growing up and grew up in an extremely dysfunctional and disconnected family. No therapist or anyone assigned to 'help' me in all this time has said anything about any of my experiences or validated any of the effects that it's had on me. The only responses I've gotten were antagonistic -- that it was something wrong with me for thinking that something was wrong with how I grew up. My psychiatrist told me that memories are of impressions, not facts.

Talk about re-victimization.

People don't want to have any responsibility for each other. I can't blame them. It's hard to take responsibility for what you do. I have 8 big amalgam fillings. Recently I was diagnosed with a compound heterozygous MTHFR mutation -- C677T and A1298C. You can check out MTHFR.net for more information if you're interested.

But the implications this gene mutation has for mental health are pretty huge. Especially with the A1298C mutation, which I think can make detoxifying very difficult, things like amalgam fillings can potentially become a much larger issue. I try not to think about it because I don't have the money to get them out.

There's also discussion about wisdom tooth removal being unnecessary and the potential endocrine system disruption that can contribute to. This of course needs more research. But the point is: so many treatments are just run-of-the-mill these days. People just do these things without thinking.

I took the medication they gave me because I didn't know any better. Last time I was in the mental hospital, I refused medication. I also felt like I had to lie and put on a mask in order to get out of the mental hospital. I was afraid to be open with my feelings because I thought they'd make me stay longer, or give me a diagnosis and require me to take medication for it. In my personal experience, psychiatry is a suppressive and oppressive practice, and focuses less on helping the patients and seeing and connecting with them as people, and more on dehumanizing them and trying to fit them to a diagnosis and a prescription.

Of course, I'm biased, because I've had horrible experiences with psychiatry. I don't support it, but that doesn't mean there aren't people out there who can help people and who can do a good job. I'll need a lot of convincing with that though ;)

Anyway, I've been through emotional trauma and a whole lot of BS that is just ridiculous. But ultimately I think it does go back to a physical imbalance, or chemical imbalance, or whatever you want to call it. Our mind is a part of our body. The problem is that figuring out what's going on is extremely complicated. Business goes after the quick fix. A 5 minute psychiatrist appointment can cost 150 bucks and the guy doesn't do anything but pretend to listen to you and keep your medication the same or up or down the dosage.

(did I mention that I'm biased?)

REAL help would consist of non-judgmental listening to the patient, and connecting with them as a person -- listening to them.

Would you like it if your friends never just talked with you, but always tried to give you advice or tell you what you should do? Hell no! People want to be friends with people they enjoy spending time with. A psychiatrist isn't meant to be a friend, but at the same time, most people just want to vent their feelings and aren't telling people their feelings because they want a specific treatment for it or a way to fix it.

Just being in an environment where you don't feel threatened with diagnoses and medication and hospitalization, and can just talk about your feelings, would probably help way, way more than standard psychiatric procedure.

As upset as I get about this, it doesn't do any good to hate people. Even though a lot of authority figures and professionals are responsible for damaging so much of my life and playing a big role in how much of a living hell my life was for so many years, they're people too. Wanting to tear them down isn't going to do anyone any good. The best thing to do is focus on what the REAL issues are:

1) Love and support
2) Educating people so they can make more informed decisions

Nutrition requires a lifestyle change that a lot of people aren't willing to make. No one should assume that someone isn't willing to make those changes, though. It should be publicly acknowledged that diet and lifestyle changes can dramatically help mental illness. And more research should be promoted in these areas. People need to know not because they need to be told what to do, but so they can have the ability to make decisions that they're completely capable of making on their own.

Having a closed system that assumes people are too stupid to take care of themselves is an insult to the practice of mental health. The foundation of mental health should be the acknowledgement and respect of a person as an individual. These kinds of things are the definition of hypocrisy.

They didn't say outright that people are too stupid, I know. But the fact that so many people are feeling like they're being treated that way counts for a lot. This calls for some serious revisions in the psychiatric system, although those have been in order probably since the beginning of the practice anyway.

Why do you attack NPR and not the rest of the media and pharmaceutical companies, which are the ones that profit from this misinformation and pump incredible amounts of money into the system. But it's really the medical establishment that let us down. They prescribe these drugs, not the journalists. The media SHOULD confront them, but do they ever? They seem to be in business of selling advertisement.
I was offered anti-depressants 5 times by my general practitioners just because ;1. my appetite was poor, and 2. I said something difficult had happened to me and I felt depressed. 3. poor sleep, etc.

I would really like to know more about the adverse affects of medications and research that shows it's not about brain chemistry. I am being treated for severe depression, and I would like to be informed about this issue. Also, my mother is a counselor and is a big believer in brain chemistry being the basis of mental illness. So it would take some serious sources for my mother to be willing to take a look at this.

I have kept thinking that I do not want to be on medications. I would like to know more on this subject because it is news to me. It seems everywhere people say that it is about brain chemistry and the answer is medication. It's so annoying though because it seems like nobody knows what to do to treat me. They just keep throwing pills my way and say, 'Let's see if that works.'

I have repeatedly urged people, including in other essays on this blog, to read Bob's excellent book. There is a problem with the blurb you quoted here. It is not that the number of people "disabled by mental illness" has soared but rather the number of people suffering from adverse drug effects has soared and been misinterpreted as though they were proof of something originally wrong within the person.

Paula - first ... I really appriciate your determined stance on these issues and what your personal experience with being a part of the dsm brings to the table as an advocate against diagnosis.

My muse today....what is your take on this kind of public admission as a set up for the next great snake oil for their fear based marketing and magical promises? I've been reading, and Amy has more insight on this I think....they are setting it up for more invasive modalities like neuro stimulation/modulation and psycho surgery.....?

Its great that we have this admission.....but they wouldn't be tossing out their money maker without trying to set themselves up for something bigger and better....psychiatrists like money and surgery is a much larger profit margin that writing scripts all day.....more conflict potential that might not be touched by current efforts with pharma as hardware manufactures start pushing the next tool/technique....??? If they can't take the perks from pharma this opens the door to manufactures of surgical supplies to court them....

Paula - first ... I really appriciate your determined stance on these issues and what your personal experience with being a part of the dsm brings to the table as an advocate against diagnosis.

My muse today....what is your take on this kind of public admission as a set up for the next great snake oil for their fear based marketing and magical promises? I've been reading, and Amy has more insight on this I think....they are setting it up for more invasive modalities like neuro stimulation/modulation and psycho surgery.....?

Its great that we have this admission.....but they wouldn't be tossing out their money maker without trying to set themselves up for something bigger and better....psychiatrists like money and surgery is a much larger profit margin that writing scripts all day.....more conflict potential that might not be touched by current efforts with pharma as hardware manufactures start pushing the next tool/technique....??? If they can't take the perks from pharma this opens the door to manufactures of surgical supplies to court them....

Susan, what you say is terrifying and, sadly, probably true. I do believe there are some people in this field who have integrity, but one never knows who they are until one finds out for sure ... often too late. I hope your warning will help people be on the alert. And of course even Dr. Oz has apparently recently been pushing electroshock -- and a recent US Surgeon General pushed it, too.

This story is not a surprise to me. Vioxx killed between 55,000 and 88,000 based on reports I've read and it affected 169,000 negatively. Merck's owners and employees face no criminal charges what so ever. Where is law inforcement? Why do these companies not face criminal charges? Pharma has corrupted medicine, governments and the public. It has caused an autism epidemic and used its corrupted government health agencies like the FDA to cover it up. Psychiatry has become a pill pushing Pharma acomplice and deserves to be investigated and face criminal charges for the fraud described in this story.

How about the terrible side effects from stopping these drugs after you've been inappropriately placed on these for the so-called "chemical imbalance"?! I went through hell after going off Cymbalta! After dealing with brain zaps, debilitating migraines and vertigo amongst others for over 3 weeks, I will never take another SSRI or SNRI. I still feel like I was betrayed by my psychiatrist.

How about the terrible side effects from stopping these drugs after you've been inappropriately placed on these for the so-called "chemical imbalance"?! I went through hell after going off Cymbalta! After dealing with brain zaps, debilitating migraines and vertigo amongst others for over 3 weeks, I will never take another SSRI or SNRI. I still feel like I was betrayed by my psychiatrist.