FROM MY FILES FRIDAY: Is there such a thing as a “chemical imbalance?” The term has fallen out of favor of late, but you still hear it. In this slightly edited blog that was first published in March 2011, I offered my opinion about this often controversial term.
CHEMICAL IMBALANCES: REAL OR IMAGINED?
One of the first phrases parents hear when a loved one shows symptoms of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or persistent and major depression is “chemical imbalance.” I remember being shocked when I wrote this term in a Washington Post Op Ed piece and was confronted by someone who told me there is absolutely no scientific evidence that mental illnesses are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain.
So I was happy when I received an advance copy of the book: SHRINK RAP: Three Psychiatrist Explain Their Work written by psychiatrists: Dinah Miller, Annette Hanson, and Steven Roy Daviss, who write a popular mental health blog. I found their comments about “chemical imbalances” helpful.
“Chemical imbalance is a term with imprecise meaning…Saying that a psychiatric disorder is caused by a chemical imbalance, although an imperfect explanation, sometimes makes psychiatric disorders more palatable to patients and less stigmatizing. The term gives some credence to the practice of treating these disorders with medication. But there is no psychiatric disorder for which we know for certain which chemicals are “imbalanced” if any.
“We have reasons for believing that psychiatric disorders must certainly be mediated by biological factors. For one thing, psychiatric illnesses run in families, even when family members are separated at birth. Research has shown that genetic links, and even specific genes, may be associated with different disorders. Many studies have shown that the biological features of groups of people with illnesses are different from those same features in groups of people without those illnesses. What we don’t have, yet, is a specific reliable test for a certain genotype or enzyme level, or a brain scan finding that indicates that a specific person has a specific disease.”
