The Untold Societal Damage of the Chemical Imbalances of the Brain Theory
For many years, the pharmaceutical industry and psychiatry pushed the notion that mental illness exists because of chemical imbalances in the brain. In other words, they claimed that the reason people suffer from psychological distress is because they have defective brains. While a link between such chemical imbalances and mental illness has never been scientifically substantiated, this theory has been so thoroughly disseminated that, according to studies on the subject from about a decade ago, possibly the majority of people in some Western countries believe in it.
This theory can be traced back to the 1960s. However, it began popping up in psychiatric offices a bit under thirty years later. It took off in the 1990s due to successful promotional efforts by pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, an unproven theory of mental illness has reigned supreme over the lives of many for about three decades.
As a result, clients have been routinely told by professionals that they have an incurable disease that will never get better but will need to be managed with drugs and therapies from said professionals. Following from that, untold numbers of people have been hooked to such drugs and therapies that do not really work on average (see the links for the poor performance of psych drugs and therapy). Naturally, a lot of time and money is ultimately spent on the ministrations of these psych professionals, many of whom were duped by the chemical imbalance theory as well. It would have been bad enough if wasted time and money were the only harms dealt by this theory. Unfortunately, the damage to society has gone beyond that.
How has the chemical imbalance/defective brain theory harmed society?
For starters, who can tell how many people have lapsed into apathy or even despair because they trusted the verdict of a doctor or a pharmaceutical advertisement and saw no hope for a better future?
Years ago, I had an anxiety problem. This went on until I started thinking logically about how I viewed life stressors. I mulled the fleeting nature of these things that brought me so much turmoil. Despite all the emotion and energy that I had put into each situation, these eventually resolved and faded into the past. Therefore, the anxiety had ultimately been pointless. When this reality sank in, my anxiety levels naturally dropped.
Now, if I had instead gone to a psychiatrist, I would possibly have been told that I needed to take an SSRI perpetually to treat a serotonin deficiency in the brain, not unlike how a diabetic needs to take insulin. Yes, psych providers really have been known to use that line! Besides the questionable ethics of promoting an unproven theory, the disempowering effect of it is patently obvious, especially when compared with an alternative approach.
As it turns out, research backs up the notion that the chemical imbalances of the brain theory is disempowering. A study was done on 279 psychiatric patients split into two groups: those that believed their suffering was due to chemical imbalances in the brain and those that viewed their depression through a psychosocial lens. The chemical imbalance group members were more depressed upon admission, less hopeful that treatment would work, and more likely to experience depression 2 weeks post-treatment.
Let us move on to another area in which this biogenetic theory of mental illness has harmed society. How many people refuse to have children because they are convinced they will pass on defective genes and curse their descendants to lives of mental torment?
A woman who goes by the handle of “SchizoKitzo” on Youtube made a video on why she plans on not having children. Not even a minute into it, she states that she has a chemical imbalance. (Any guesses who told her that?) She then dives into her reasons for staying childless. The first reason is her schizoaffective disorder. Another reason is her psych drugs, which she would be afraid to discontinue for the duration of pregnancy and breast-feeding, citing fears for the safety of the child and her own stability.
While SchizoKitzo ultimately mentions additional, non-psychiatric-related reasons for not wanting children, it cannot be denied that a number of people do make this impactful life decision purely out of fear propagated by an unproven psychiatric theory. Take Liz, for example, whose experience is discussed in an article from The Atlantic titled “Staying Child-Free Because of Mental Health Concerns.” Liz desired a family, but ended up aborting her only pregnancy due to fears of passing her bipolar disorder to the child. Like SchizoKitzo, she was scared of going off her psych drugs. Now menopausal, she is “filled with sadness” that her dream of having children never came true, and she blames her mental illness for ruining her dream. But did it have to be that way?
As a final note, Loren Mosher, who oversaw much of the earlier research on schizophrenia at the NIMH when some of the major inheritance studies were funded, stated that Nazi Germany developed the best genetic research project possible. They either killed or sterilized a whole population of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. Yet within one generation, the same incidence of those diagnosed with schizophrenia returned. If the disorder had been truly genetic, such a quick return would not have been possible.
– Colbert, T.C. (2017). The Four False Pillars of Biopsychiatry.
Doubtlessly, many such poor people have bought into the proposed biogenetic explanation for mental illness because many of them never knew they had another option. How angry would they be if they discovered the truth?
References:
1. neuronerd. (Sep. 6, 2022). No Link Between Serotonin and Depression? Neurofrontiers. https://neurofrontiers.blog/no-link-between-serotonin-and-depression/
2. Ang, B., Horowitz, M., Moncrieff, J., et al. (Dec. 2022). Is the chemical imbalance an ‘urban legend’? An exploration of the status of the serotonin theory of depression in the scientific literature. SSM – Mental Health. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032200038X
3. Schroder, H.S., Duda, J.M., Christensen, K. et al. Stressors and chemical imbalances: Beliefs about the causes of depression in an acute psychiatric treatment sample.Science Direct. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032720325064?casa_token=FjZ
4. Smith, R.I. (Dec. 8, 2016). Staying Child-Free Because of Mental-Health Concerns. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/12/staying-child-free-for-mental-health-reasons/622667/
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