The Chemical Imbalance Theory – also called the “monomine” or “biogenic amine” theory – proposed low levels of one or more of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine in the central nervous system caused mental disturbance i.e. depression, anxiety, psychosis.

It was a great hypothesis that has been proven false.

“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…”

Source: On the Myth of the Chemical Imbalance – No, You Don’t Have a Chemical Imbalance in Your Brain.

No prescribed psychotropic medication corrects an identifiable imbalance in the brain. They affect neurotransmitters, yes, and cause a change in functioning.

Related post: How Was the Chemical Imbalance Theory Developed?

Long term these medications are disabling and cause many additional health problems such as obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, liver and kidney damage, sexual dysfunction, etc.

Chemical Imbalance Theory Still Promoted But is Unfounded

“A long overdue debate is raging about the chemical imbalance theory of depression. Having been deluged with this idea for two decades now, the general public has come to believe that it is a scientifically proven fact.”

“An LBC radio presenter recently announced that he had suffered from depression and he knew it was a chemical imbalance. ‘All the goodness is flushed out of the brain [and you have to] top it up now and again; that’s why you need medicine,’ is how he expressed it.”

“Pharmaceutical industry propaganda has led the way in advocating this view, but the medical profession continues to endorse it too.”

“On 18th March 2014, viewers of This Morning, a national UK television programme were advised by the programme’s resident General Practitioner, Dr Chris Steele, that depression consists of a chemical imbalance in the brain caused by depletion of serotonin.”

Source: The blog of British psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff

Your Brain Chemicals May Be Affecting Mood But Doctors Do Not Know Why or How

Manic Depression is not fake, phony, someone wanting attention, someone recovering from addiction or sexual abuse… it is a very real physical illness.

A physical illness that has primary symptoms identified (presently) as mental. So how else would you understand it from a medical standpoint than something going on with the functioning of the brain?

And that there are things in the brain such as levels of neurotransmitters or other pathology that effect mood i.e. contribute to the highs and lows of the illness.

That all makes sense.

What you want to find out is what has created that illness state in your body, caused your particular genetic-environmental-situational vulnerability to manifest as mental illness.

And to clearly understand that a multitude of things are most likely at play, not simply some messed up neurotransmitter levels that a medication will fix.

It’s a fantasy. We have all been duped.

The Chemical Imbalance Fairy is for Fairy Tales

Even if the mental health professional (psychiatrist, psychologist, mental health advocate) thinks it is in the patients best interest to say things they know are not true like that the Chemical Imbalance Theory is valid and scientifically proven… it is still a lie.

You can click your heels twice… it’s still a lie. Go to bed, have sweet dreams. There will still be no Chemical Imbalance Fairy when you wake up.

For health professionals to use this lie to keep folks on medications that are not medically proven to be a treatment for their symptoms but are proven to cause serious side effects is unethical at the very least.

Life is hard. Complete shit at times. Everyone suffers to some extent.

Making someone sicker is not going to help them live a better life.

There are Medical Treatments for Mental Illness – Other Than Psychotropic Medications

Feel hopeless now, like there is nothing that will help you? That if psychiatric medications (most likely the primary care you’ve been given) are snake oil, nothing can be done?

That is not true! There are many medical causes of mood disturbance and many available treatments.

Read about a child who spent six months in a psychiatric hospital with no improvement of symptoms, then healed with micronutrients: Child Healed with Micronutrients.

Learn about Kelly Brogan M.D.’s online treatment program – available to anyone and low cost – that is helping many heal from emotional-physical-mental symptoms: Vital Mind Reset.

I want Bipolar 1 Disorder – i.e. actual Manic Depression – to be better understood from a biological standpoint.

And for others to have better care by psychiatrists and doctors for mood disorders than I was given when I became ill.

Or at least more options other than just brain damaging psychotropic medications.

Peace. Molly

How was the chemical imbalance theory developed? I didn’t answer this question directly in the previous post: What is the Chemical Imbalance Theory.

We understand it does not prove anything with regards to chemicals in your brain that are being problematic and causing mood symptoms (i.e. imbalanced levels) and that therefore you need to take a specific medication – or many medications as is the norm these days – to correct this imbalance.

[bctt tweet=”Psychiatrist Ronald Pies, M.D. Calls the Chemical Imbalance Theory Urban Legend.”]

That hypothesis and purported reality is false. Taking lithium for bipolar is not the same thing as being prescribed insulin to treat a diagnosed condition of diabetes, for example.

That does not mean that lithium may not help you if you are suffering from Manic Depression – now called BP-1 – it sedates a person who has become manic and spun out of control.

But Manic Depression has never been proven to be caused by a lithium deficiency, and long-term use is very harmful. The claims lithium is neuroprotective are hogwash. It is a neurotoxin that damages neurons.

Related post: Neuroprotective Properties of Lithium.

How Was the Chemical Imbalance Theory Developed?

If you are thinking, like I used to, that those smart scientist types did some heavy duty tinkering in a lab somewhere (most likely at a university, right?) and discovered about a mentally ill persons brains (using mice of course).

They discovered the difference in some (from normal brains) was attributable to chemical levels in the brain being altered i.e. too much or too little of something.

They were able to prove there was an imbalance of identifiable chemicals and that was therefore hypothesized to cause mental illness. Fixing this imbalance, would therefore treat the problem.

Unfortunately, that is not what happened or what they did. It’s more a ‘cart before the pony’ scenario, where they manipulated cause and effect and proved nothing scientifically.

A Drug Was Developed For Depression Then the Chemical Imbalance Theory Was Developed

The whole theory – or hypothesis – was developed after a medication was created (that was real science, done in a lab, patents granted and voila… something to prescribe for patients) to try and help those suffering from depression.

Here is a quote from a 2007 psychology research paper published by the American Psychological Association (APA): The “Chemical Imbalance” Explanation for Depression: Origins, Lay Endorsement, and Clinical Implications.

You can read the full article here: APA article.

Not only is it an unproven hypothesis created to market drugs and make money, psychotropic medications have been repeatedly shown to be ineffective in addition to causing severe harm: death, disability, homicidal and suicidal acts, etc.

Isn’t that wonderful?

Psychiatrist Ronald Pies, M.D. Calls Chemical Imbalance Theory an “Urban Legend”

So now we understand that it is not a proven theory, but something that was developed to understand effects of why drugs that had been developed seemed to be helping those with serious mood disorders, psychosis or other symptomatology.

And that’s all great and good, as long as it is clearly understood it didn’t prove anything – but the researchers get 5 gold stars for trying.

Here is a quote from eminent psychiatrist Dr. Ronald Pies – former Editor in Chief of Psychiatric Times. He wrote on July 11th, 2011:

“I am not one who easily loses his temper, but I confess to experiencing markedly increased limbic activity whenever I hear someone proclaim, ‘Psychiatrists think all mental disorders are due to a chemical imbalance!”

“In the past 30 years, I don’t believe I have ever heard a knowledgeable, well-trained psychiatrist make such a preposterous claim, except perhaps to mock it.”

And he wrote this too!

“In truth, the ‘chemical imbalance’ notion was always a kind of urban legend- – never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists.”

Source: Psychiatry’s New Brain-Mind and the Legend of the “Chemical Imbalance”

I now get how it came to be, and also understand clearly that it has been debunked, however well-intentioned in theory it was at the start. Nothing wrong there, that’s what scientists do… try to figure things out.

But – I hope you get this clearly now – the huge problem is that this debunked theory is still being used to manipulate psychiatric patients (regular docs prescribe psychotropic meds too and say the same lie to their patients) into taking medications that they are being told are correcting an imbalance of chemicals in their brain.

Nope. Psych drugs do affect chemicals in the brain and alter levels of them… that is true. But everyone needs to understand it’s a crapshoot-style of treatment and nothing that was developed from verifiable science.

This is why the new focus on the gut and its affects on neurotransmitters i.e. “Your Second Brain” is so exciting – it has yet to be proven false!

Related post: You Have a Second Brain – Your Gut!

Your brain is messed up if suffering from bipolar disorder (BP) or have Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) – but the why of it has yet to be clearly understood.

Everyone wants to understand the brain better and why some folks brains function in ways that make them very ill.

Let’s keep trying.