BLAMING THE BRAIN The Chemical Imbalance Swindle

�The advent of the psychotropic drugs has also given rise to a new biological language in psychiatry. The extent to which this has come to be part of popular culture is in many ways astonishing �. This triumph, however, is not without its ambiguities. It can reasonably be asked whether biological language offers more in the line of marketing copy than it offers in terms of clinical meaning.�
� Dr. David Healy, The AntiDepressant Era, 1999.

The cornerstone of psychiatry�s disease model today, is the concept that a brainbased, chemical imbalance underlies mental dis ease. While popularized by heavy public marketing, it is simply fanciful psychiatric thinking. As with all of psychiatry�s disease models, it has been thoroughly dis credited by researchers.

Elliot Valenstein, Ph.D. is unequivocal: �There are no tests available for assessing the chemical status of a living person�s brain.� Also, no �biochemical, anatomical, or functional signs have been found that reliably distinguish the brains of mental patients.�

An article published in May 2004 in the U.S. newspaper, The Mercury News , states, �Many doctors warn about using the SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) [brain] imaging as a diagnostic tool, saying it is unethical� and potentially dangerous�for doctors to use SPECT to identify emotional, behavioral and psychiatric problems in a patient. The $2,500 evaluation offers no useful or accurate information, they say.�

Dr. Julian Whitaker, author of the respected Health & Healing newsletter says: �When psychiatrists label a child or [adult], they�re labeling people because of symptoms. They do not have any pathological diagnosis; they do not have any laboratory diagnosis; they cannot show any differentiation that would back up the diagnosis of these psychiatric �diseases.� Whereas if you have a heart attack, you can find the lesion; if you have diabetes, your blood sugar is very high; if you have arthritis it will show on the Xray. In psychiatry, it�s just crystal-balling, fortune-telling; it�s totally unscientific.�

Ty Colbert, Ph.D. says, �We know that the chemical imbalance model for mental illness has never been scientifically proven. We also know that all reasonable evidence points instead to the disabling model of psychiatric drug action. Furthermore, we also know that the research on drug effectiveness/efficacy are unreliable because drug tests only measure efficacy based on symptom reduction, not cure.�

According to Valenstein, �The theories are held on to not only because there is nothing else to take their place, but also because they are useful in promoting drug treatment.�

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