Chemically Imbalanced
Description
In 2022, my team and I published a paper revealing the idea that depression is caused by a lack of serotonin is not supported by evidence. In this talk I describe how this idea was promoted by pharmaceutical industry campaigns, supported by the medical profession, and motivated by profit and professional concerns rather than science. I describe how the idea justified the widespread use of antidepressants and helped to solidify a biomedical approach to helping people with emotional problems, which fundamentally shapes our understanding of emotional suffering and what it is to be human. I propose that antidepressants should be understood as drugs that change normal brain chemistry rather than correct underlying imbalances, and that we should help and support people who are struggling with emotional problems rather than try and treat speculative brain conditions.
Lineup
Professor Joanna Moncrieff
Joanna Moncrieff is a Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at University College London, and works as a consultant psychiatrist in the National Health Service in London. She researches and writes about the nature of mental health problems and the drug treatments prescribed for such problems, including antidepressants and antipsychotics. She has led large UK government-funded research studies. She is also the co-chair person of the Critical Psychiatry Network. She is author of numerous scientific papers and several books about psychiatric drugs including her most recent, Chemically Imbalanced: the making and unmaking of the serotonin myth (Flint Books, 2025), The Bitterest Pills (Palgrave 2013) and The Myth of the Chemical Cure (Palgrave, 2008). Twitter handle @joannamoncrieff https://joannamoncrieff.com
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