Mental illness: is 'chemical imbalance' theory or myth?

That’s a very simplistic explanation researchers are coming to realize is what I learned in class. In reality we don’t even know if the chemical imbalance is what causes the symptoms, or if there’s not another underlying issue and the chemical imbalance is just another symptom. Also, we’re finding out that there are many different possible sources for mental illness, not necessarily everyone with it may have that chemical imbalance, you have people who find out their mental health issues were due to dietary issues or nutrition deficiency or hormonal imbalances or sleep disorders and all number of things.

Personalized medicine is going to change the entire field of psychiatry, let me tell you.

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I like keeping it simple.

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Most people do I don’t blame you

I’m fine w keeping it simple unless the oversimplifying leads to the wrong treatments.

I was always told it was a chemical imbalance because I was two months premature and I hadn’t fully developed when I came out. However, I’ve also heard that brains continue to grow, even through teenage years…so why would being premature cause a chemical imbalance later on in life?

Of course, my disorder started when I was a teenager going through puberty so I don’t know if there’s something to that…I mean if the chemicals were never there to begin with how could they grow with the rest of the brain? I don’t know.

The brain is such a large and complex organism its hard to say what causes mental illness. But I also don’t think it’s always the nurture argument either my parents weren’t abusive. I grew up in a loving home and was highly encouraged to take part in things. And yet I still developed Schizophrenia…it could be hereditary. I don’t know if anyone in my family in the past has been officially diagnosed before but Alzheimer does run in the family and there are signs from the stories of past relatives that it might have been Schizophrenia too. But back in those days in the small country areas my family lived (on both parents sides) mental health wasn’t treated back then.

It’s always curious to me how similar delusions and hallucinations can be within the population.

To me that says there’s something similar structurally going on. Didn’t read the article. I don’t link off this website and just respond to posts. STill.

I think we’re at the end of dopamine agonists. We’ve come a long way but other chemicals will get us home! Yes. It is all brain chemistry. Might not be about balance at all but dopamine agonists do work to a certain extent!

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It’s more like a fable.

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All they do (In my opinion) is tranquillise your brain to a point that you become a drone just like everybody else.

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I just wonder why it is that our conscious will can “override” certain symptoms, such as the tics within tardive dyskinesia, etc. Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

A lot of theories come to be, get discarded, and get revived again. The collective consciousness hears what it wants to hear and disregards the rest. No single soul knows all there is to know. It can make a pessimist out of a person. In the end, each is their own advocate.

I noticed that the article doesn’t describe anything to contradict “the myth.” It would make for a long, drawn out class if it were to do so in full. It would be like trying to teach Python or C++ in a few pages. Most readers of that newspaper with this article get their understanding of themselves from movies, story books, social magazines, songs, and religions. If you described what they really are, that would read something like a description of computer language and how the computer processes the commands in the language as well as the data such as external sensory inputs, memory, feelings both bodily and emotional, people would not get it because of what they’ve only been taught to believe about what they are.

People just want to use their computer not learn how to build it and program it. They want a quick download, and then use the computer to do things for their lives.

That is why the chem theory is so popular. It suggests that you just download the solution, and blammo. They don’t care about informationous phenomena, ontology, logic, or things like the systems, coding, and functions of cybernetics phenomena.

Because really the problem is about bad programming, but how do you make a bad program change itself? You incentivize the learning about these things until the person just automatically re-writes the mental code for themselves.

Incentives cost money though, and that is the wrong way for a lot of people out there unconcerned about other people and families in the world.

When I began to see that people were coding each other and themselves after seeing my own brain doing this to itself and studying information phenomena, language, logic, and computer languages, then I no longer was paranoid. If I started to panic or feel awkward, I would just realize that my brain is starting to code itself again. If what others were making me panic, I would just realize that they were coding each other or me. I don’t have to accept the codes either way, and then run them through my brain processors if I know what this is all about. When I didn’t know what this was all about, I did have to processes these codes, and it always made me panic, screw up, and make things very, very bad.

The result of this ability is that I’m happier, and people are happier with me. I realize that most people don’t understand these things, and so they are dealing with these things too, thus I don’t take these blunders personally. Instead I accentuate on the positive things and what’s more socially enjoyable.

Can a pill do all that? :slight_smile: I wish.

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Of course it’s not just a chemical imbalance. There is a substantial psychological component to all mental illness, even schizophrenia. The chemical imbalance account was never more than an oversimplification. It’s very unlikely that we will ever find a chemical cure for schizophrenia. We might cure some cases, and we will probably find ways to suppress the symptoms better, but for the majority, this syndrome is not simply biological. It’s naivë to think that all we need is meds. That idea is the source of a lot of our misery. It’s time that changed.

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I completely disagree. Sz is biological, physiologic, chemical. Its in the genes, the connectome, the neurons, the synapses, the hormones, the molecules. Its not environmental, psychological or emotional.

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A large part of it is. Schizophrenia is very strongly related to trauma, and therapy is helpful. I mostly cured my negative and cognitive symptoms by working my way through them. If it had been completely biological with no psychological component, that wouldn’t have been possible. But it was. I still need meds, but meds didn’t make me functional. Dealing with my psychological problems made me functional.

I’m not saying it’s not biological. I’m saying it’s naivë to think it’s somehow not psychological at all. It’s both. Psychological factors are involved throughout the course of the illness, from before the onset to recovery and beyond that.

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I strongly support @GentleSoul … its a mixture…!!

I see some grammar confusion.

The words trauma, environmental, and therapy are all dealing with information. The brain processes information. Information represents what it is not, and the mind is 100% information.

The brain however is physical, physiological, kinetic, biological, bodily, and chemical. To describe these things I refer to these things as psychology is a very physiological understanding of things similar to how computer experts that are into the hardware side of things may not necessarily be into the coding and programming side of computer science.

Psychology is the hardware side.

Mindology is the information and coding side of things. That is the word now, and you all will be seeing a lot more of it in the future being used.

Oh, and technically therapy is mind coding. Actually when people are talking, it is mind coding. We can mind code ourselves, and when we use drugs and alcohol we can mind code ourselves and be mind coded so much easier that this is why people that become sz on these things were able to become programmed as such.

What seems embarrassing about this is just a misunderstanding about what we are.

Oh, and environment programs us as it is also informationous to us.

It might be chemical.imbalance but all physical illnesses derive from emotional issues.

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Which comes first? The chemical reaction or the information?

Hello friends,

From what I know by my experience, I think chemical imbalance does play a factor as well as environment. So, after I got diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age, I did not do much testing after that. But, at the age of 20 (3 years later!) my mom’s friend referred me to this clinic, where they had testing instruments to measure my brain waves. To be honest, I didn’t know much about what will happen- so I just said yes, and finished the testing.

After couple weeks, I got the results- and it was very interesting. The doctor said, “Your brain is showing imbalance- you can see the colours here.” I was so surprised. But he also told me that my past might contribute as well.

The article is very interesting- I always enjoy reading new articles that I haven’t read before. Thank you for posting! Wishing you all a joyful and wonderful evening <3

Too long of a post. I can’t read it.

Do you read news articles? Think of it like that. I normally skim them, but I’ve read so many that I basically understand the things they are talking about, and I’m only looking for any significant change to the things I already know. If it’s nothing new, then I just fling 'em. If there is something new, then I slow way down to read it carefully. I use google and youtube to understand new words and concepts. Sometimes things are so new and interesting that I wind up going on a research project on the subject. These have lasted anywhere from hours to years.