“The public have been led to believe that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance that antidepressants help to rectify; however, there is no current evidence that any sort of drug specifically targets an underlying biological abnormality …”
“Antidepressants are not antidepressants – an alternative approach to drug action and implications for the use of antidepressants” is an article written by Dr. Joanna Moncrieff (psychiatrist) and published in the BJPsych Bulletin (Jan. 30th 2018) as part of their “Against the Stream Series”. The article’s summary says:
“Although antidepressants are regarded as effective and specific treatments, they are barely superior to placebo in randomised trials, and differences are unlikely to be clinically relevant. The conventional disease-centred understanding of drug action regards antidepressants as targeting an underlying brain process, but an alternative ‘drug-centred’ view suggests they are psychoactive substances that modify normal mental states and behaviour. These alterations, such as numbing of emotions, may reduce feelings of depression, and also create amplified placebo effects in randomised trials. Patients should be informed that there is no evidence that antidepressants work by correcting a chemical imbalance, that antidepressants have mind-altering effects, and that evidence suggests they produce no noticeable benefit compared with placebo …”
Read more here.
This is true according to Irving Kirsch who is a PhD at Harvard’s Center for Placebo Studies and his 36 year career investigating the placebo effect. Try telling what Dr Moncrieff or Dr. Kirsch says based on solid research to US Psychiatrists and see how they react! As a 66 year old male Biopsychologist I tried to no avail and instead was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital!!