Mental Health: Facts & Fiction

Those of you who have expertise in fields pertaining to mental health may find this article to be common knowledge, but for many this may be eye opening. We publish these articles to spark interest and provide important information to our readers. Sit back, relax, and enjoy as we explain the most misunderstood aspect of mental health, that many advocates are not even aware of.

Being involved in the topic of mental health opens many doors to meetings, research, and experts as well as awesome people. A huge part of Mental Health awareness is making people aware, which normally entails plenty of presentations and conferences, poster making, and rallies. Many of these though hold one very interesting flaw when explaining Mental Illness in Mental Health awareness. It is often explained that Mental Illness is is the result of “Chemical Imbalance” in the brain. This is the single largest falsehood of Mental Illness/ Health awareness. You may be asking yourself “How is this true!?”, you may even start becoming doubtful of this article, but we assure you it’s true and we will prove it!

The idea of chemical imbalance as a causation of Mental Illness lies in “Chemical Imbalance theory” [1] which, is the idea that most, if not all mental illnesses are the result of unequal levels of of neurotransmitters (chemicals) in the brain. For example: Low serotonin levels cause depression. At face value this makes perfect sense, for example, for people diagnosed with severe clinical depression resulting in suicide, researchers do find lower than optimal levels of serotonin in the brain. [2] Hence why not infer that lower serotonin causes depression?

Courtesy of  grandmagazine.com [7]

The issue with that train of logic is that you would be ignoring one little detail, what is causing the lower serotonin levels in the first place? When this realisation is applied it becomes apparent that in-fact lower serotonin levels are not the cause of depression, but instead the result of depression, basically a symptom. This becomes true in all mental illnesses that have been “linked” to this theory (primarily Clinical Depression & Schizophrenia).  In addition, the American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry states that Chemical Imbalance is an “unproven hypothesis”. [3]

So what is the cause of Mental Illness? No one actually knows for sure, there are many theories, and even with the evidence provided Chemical Imbalance is still on the table, just not with nearly as much popularity as when it was first devised as it is very hard to disprove a theory when no others hold any better solutions.

This begs the question, “Then should people be taking drugs for Mental Illness on the basis of an unsupported theory in the first place?!” It’s a fair point, should we really be giving drugs to patients who have a Mental Illness (E.g. Clinical Depression), when we know that chemicals (E.g. Low serotonin levels) have very little proof linking them to the cause of mental illness? The answer is by many psychiatrists, yes. [4] The reasoning behind this conclusion is that drugs can help even-out the chemicals in the brain, and help with patient recovery from Mental illnesses like depression. So drugs in their entirety do not “Fix” Mental illness, they simply provide relief by manipulating the brain back to a “normal” state, which can aid psychiatrists in finding long-term solutions by buying time and comfort for those suffering from mental illness. In simple terms, they treat the symptoms, not the ‘disease’. [5]

In conclusion, drugs are not perfect, and they have shown themselves to likely not be the “fix” for a part of the body [the brain] that is barely understood even by modern science. Drugs do seem to buy time, and help with treatment, but it seems we are a ways off from discovering the true “cure” for mental illnesses. This is also not to say that psychiatric drugs don’t have negative side effects. [6] In-fact, all prescription drugs do (it’s why they are prescribed by a physician or other qualified medical professional and not over-the-counter). In-all this is an interesting topic, we hope you enjoyed!

-- Suicide/ Mental Health Group

Suicide/ Mental Health Group 

Sources:
- Chemical Imbalance Theory [1]
- Serotonin and Depression related Suicide [2]
- Chemical Imbalance Theory Unproven [3]
- Psychiatry's opinion on Psychiatric Drug use (Unofficial) [4] 
- Purpose of Psychiatric Drugs [5] 
- Some Negative Drug side-effects [6] 
- First Photo [7] *External links do not necessarily reflect our views or opinions on topics*