Personal Perspective on the Systematic Review of Serotonin Imbalance Hypothesis for depression and Mechanism of Action for Antidepressants
Mark Horowitz
A Decisive Blow to the Serotonin Hypothesis of Depression
This article by Christopher Lane has been published in Psychology Today. It begins: “Almost as soon as it was floated in 1965 by Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Schildkraut, the serotonin hypothesis of depression —reduced and simplified by pharma marketing to the ‘chemical imbalance’…
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Is the chemical imbalance an ‘urban legend’? An exploration of the status of the serotonin theory of depression in the scientific literature
This study/article by Benjamin Anga, MarkHorowitz and Joanna Moncrieff has been published in ScienceDirect. The abstract says: “The theory that depression is caused by a serotonin abnormality or other chemical imbalance has become widely accepted by the public and is one…
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Listening to the Patient Voice: The Antidepressant Withdrawal Experience
“’A total of 97% of respondents were offered a prescription on their initial consultation with a doctor, 5% reported being offered talking therapy, and 0.6% were offered lifestyle advice (with some patients offered more than one option).’According to the researchers,…
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There’s More To Life Than Happiness
“I think it’s not just that you pursue a project beyond yourself because it will make you happy, but that you pursue a project beyond yourself because it makes suffering worthwhile. It’s not that you do these things because the…
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New paper on how to stop antipsychotic drugs deemed ‘historic breakthrough’
“Stopping medications is an important part of the job of a psychiatrist, yet it has received relatively little attention. In clinical practice, I often see patients perking up when they reduce their antipsychotic medication, and they tell me that they…
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