The Myths of Chemical Imbalance and Mental Illness

              

                                 (photo source)

1Ti 6:20  O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called "knowledge," 21  for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.


**Update September 24, 2022**

A new article reveals more confirmation that psychotropic SSRI drugs only help 15% of the customers, with a majority of people suffering from withdrawls from them which are worse than the original depression they sought to resolved. 

The Newsweek article states in part:

The pharmaceutical industry used that idea to market the drugs to consumers for many years, and it remains a kind of shorthand some doctors use to explain to their patients how the drugs work. As a result, according to the study's authors, between 85 and 90 percent of the public believe that low serotonin levels cause depression. After reviewing data from previous studies involving hundreds of thousands of individuals, Horowitz and his colleagues concluded that there is little to no evidence that this is true....

Horowitz and the paper's other co-authors have been using the attention to call for a fundamental reassessment of how mental illness is treated. "We have a mistaken view of what psychiatric drugs are doing," says Dr. Joanna Moncrieff, professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at University College London. She is also Horowitz's boss and the lead author of the serotonin paper. "This idea that they work by targeting the underlying biological mechanisms that produce the symptoms of mental disorders is actually not supported by evidence for any type of mental disorder, whether that's depression or schizophrenia or whatever," she told Newsweek....

The crippling sadness that sometimes follows a reduction in SSRI medication is caused by the chemical dependence the drugs can cause in the brain and withdrawal effects.

"It's not helpful to think of depression as a brain disease," she says. "I think that we should be thinking of it as an emotional reaction to life circumstances and life events. And indeed, there is very strong evidence that people who suffer from adverse life events are much more likely to get depressed."

End quote.

**Update September 16, 2019

More studies that also conclude there is no "gay gene". 

In 2019 (secular)

In 2015 (secular) (again, as years ago, the media is hyping something that the latest study does not say).

In 2009 the American Psychological Association concluded:

"There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors." - source

In 2003

What if the diagnosis of Autism is incorrect? What else could be the problem?

**Update Feburary 16,2019**

I just came across this by Dr. Breggin (secular psychiatrist):

When “mental patients” become violent, the media reaction is almost automatic—they must have stopped taking their “meds.” This myth of the violent patient controlled by psychiatric drugs is a myth. There are no scientific studies to confirm it. Indeed, the FDA has not approved any drugs as effective for controlling violence. The Pharmaceutical Empire relentlessly perpetrates the big lie because it serves a trillion dollar purpose. It keeps the public believing that psychiatric drugs are society’s last line of defense against violent individuals. It also lends all psychiatric drugs an aura of magical effectiveness that none of them possess...

Go here for the whole article.

A list of mass shootings that involved people on psych meds here.

More articles on the connection between mass shootings and psych drugs here (this article includes a link to an FDA studyand here

**Update February 16, 2018**

I came across this secular article, "Schizophrenia Is Not A Mental Illness"  by a retired psychologist who also says Schizophrenia is not a mental illness, but rather a categorizing of behavior that can actually be resolved by teaching the client how to live properly (common sense and self discipline; psychology calls it "coping skills").

**UPDATE October 26,2017

Another article published in September 2017 (redirect here):

"Having practiced psychotherapy now for nearly a decade, I continue to be amazed by the number of patients who come in and claim to have a chemical imbalance in their brain. Not only is the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorder unsubstantiated by any empirical research, but it has also been widely and publicly refuted by a number of prominent psychiatrists, like Allen Frances and Ronald Pies above. In fact, I have found that the most militant proponents of the chemical imbalance idea to be nonpsychiatrists—like social workers and clinical psychologists—who cling to the theory as a way of validating their status as "health professionals."

"Why does the chemical imbalance theory live on despite the fact that it is well-established to be a myth? The idea of a chemical imbalance is a simple and succinct way for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to communicate to patients and their families that psychiatric conditions are "real," regardless of whether they are medical or nonmedical. "Chemical imbalance" provides a seemingly scientific-sounding explanation to human problems that have historically evaded scientific inquiry. To this day, there exists not a single biological test for any mental disorder, despite claims to the contrary. To assert that a patient has a chemical imbalance is to validate and confirm the experience of the suffering person."
End quote.

Money--billions--is also at stake.

***UPDATE from January 2017***

God's Word Is True: Johns Hopkins Doctors Conclude Homosexuality Isn't Scientifically Proven

*** UPDATE 10/23/15*** (more updates at the bottom of the article)

"Many individuals who are prescribed and use antidepressant medications may not have met criteria for mental disorders. Our data indicate that antidepressants are commonly used in the absence of clear evidence-based indications." - Study as reported in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry

Yes of course. There's no evidence for any of it. It is clearly subjective both on the one who's reporting feelings and thoughts, and the one diagnosing. But there's no object medical test b/c it's not a physical problem. It's a spiritual problem. And people don't want to deal with life as it happens--either the one going through difficulties or the therapist. It's easy for both the client and the therapist to just throw pills at the problem and call it a day (an expensive day at that!).



***UPDATE 8/28/15***

A major investigation into scores of claims made in psychology research journals has delivered a bleak verdict on the state of the science.

An international team of experts repeated 100 experiments published in top psychology journals and found that they could reproduce only 36% of original findings.

The study, which saw 270 scientists repeat experiments on five continents, was launched by psychologists in the US in response to rising concerns over the reliability of psychology research.

In the investigation, a whopping 75% of the social psychology experiments were not replicated, meaning that the originally reported findings vanished when other scientists repeated the experiments. Half of the cognitive psychology studies failed the same test. Details are published in the journal Science.

Even when scientists could replicate original findings, the sizes of the effects they found were on average half as big as reported first time around. That could be due to scientists leaving out data that undermined their hypotheses, and by journals accepting only the strongest claims for publication.

~The Guardian reports

***UPDATE 5/13/15***

Another scientist finds that  not only antidepressents to be pretty ineffective, but even deadly in over 500,000 65 year olds.

" However, concern is mounting among doctors and scientists worldwide that psychiatric medication is doing more harm than good. In particular, they say antipsychotic drugs have been overprescribed to many dementia patients in a bid to calm agitated behavior."

Gøtzsche warns psychiatric drugs kill patients year in year out, and hold few positive benefits. He says in excess of half a million citizens across the Western world aged 65 and over die annually as a result of taking these drugs.

“Their benefits would need to be colossal to justify this, but they are minimal,” he writes.

“Given their lack of benefit, I estimate we could stop almost all psychotropic drugs without causing harm.”

Gøtzsche, who is also a clinical trials expert, says drug trials funded by big pharmaceutical companies tend to produce biased results because many patients took other medication prior to the tests.

He says patients cease taking the old drugs and then experience a phase of withdrawal prior to taking the trial pharmaceuticals, which appear highly beneficial at first.

The Danish professor also warns fatalities from suicides in clinical trials are significantly under-reported.

End quote.

Also of note, not only the bias of the studies and under-reporting of the results on these drugs which are funded by big Pharma which claim to help and solve the customers' problems, but also by a journalist who himself is a psych patient:

"The debate on psychiatric drugs has gathered momentum in recent times. In the discussion, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Gøtzsche’s arguments are contradicted by Professor of Mood Disorders Allan Young and John Crace. Crace, himself a psychiatric patient, writes for the Guardian."


***UPDATE 4/3/15***

Nearly 70% of People Taking Anti-depressants May Not Actually Have Depression

More than two thirds of people taking antidepressants 'may NOT actually have depression': Doctors discover many do not meet the official criteria

• *Study analysed those taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
• *Found 69% did not meet the criteria for clinical depression
• *And 38% did not meet the criteria for other mental conditions like anxiety 
• *Experts: 'Drugs are prescribed without an evidence-based diagnosis'

~Daily Mail (UK)

**UPDATE**

USA reports that experts in psychology are agreeing that "mental illness" is not a disease nor are there any biological markers to indicate it. Moreover the report shows that experts in the field see how the Bible of the psychology industry, the DSM, is nothing but a collection of subjective symptoms and NO science.



Voddie Bacham also says there's no such thing as a chemical imbalance, its a myth, there's no test. He's absolutely right.

There's no test: its voted in by the APA and put into the DSM. And sometimes disorders are removed. This is being proclaimed within the psychology and psychiatry fields, not by Christians but by secular experts in their own fields.

From the man who wrote the book"The Myth of Mental Illness" in 1955, here's an update by Thomas Szasz (professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York.)

The chemical imbalance myth (secular perspective)

"Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications" here.(secular perspective by an expert psychiatrist and professor)

There Are No "Chemical Imbalances" (secular perspective)

A psychiatrist against biopsychology. (secular perspective)

The Truth Behind Psychiatry's  DSM--quotes from the exerpts (Christian, quotes are secular experts)

More quotes from experts on DSM diagnosing

Rotten to the core. (Christian view)

The Trojan horse of psychology in the church.

**UPDATE**

The APA and its DSM has voted to now include caffeine withdrawals as a mental disorder.

**Side Note**

Psych drugs related to nearly every single mass shooting. (Secular source)

US Army admits Ft. Hood murderer Ivan Lopez was on psych drugs

**Other links**

ADHD is a fraud, as ADHD inventer Leon Eisenberg confesses, along with Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan (secular view)

Babies not born innocent:  July 2007  - secular view

Babies know the different between right and wrong:  May 2010  - secular view

Regarding the studies of psychotropic drugs: (all articles listed below are from a secular view)

 Prozac doesn’t work for 40 million people  

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/jeremy-laurance-the-vested-interests-that-conspire-to-bury-bad-news-787266.html

Drugs like benzodiazepines linked to brain damage.

SSRI anti-depressants are no better than a placebo Jama reports.

Top Ten drugs lead to violence

Anti-depressants taken by thousands of Brits not working.

Psych drug overdoses rose 400% over two decades while mass shootings exploded across America

Psychotropic drugs linked to every mass shooting in the last 20 years (2013--this doesn't include the ones in the last 5 years like the Las Vegas shooting).


Gun control vs MEDICATION control: FDA-approved prescription drugs kill more Americans each day than the entire casualty count from the Las Vegas Mandalay massacre