Mental Illness is not Biological

Is mental illness rooted in biology? There is NO physical evidence that it is. Despite that, several recent university courses I took relied on medical literature and anecdotal (family) evidence that it is. How many times do you hear, “oh, depression runs in my family”, “both my grandmothers were anxious and I’ve inherited that”, or something similar?

Gabor Maté points out that there is an old theory, “the chemical-imbalance theory”, of mental illness. In medical literature, the levels of hormones serotonin and dopamine have been linked to depression, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. Except… the link was never made scientifically. It was never found.

If there is no biological cause for mental illness, why are we treating it with drugs? What is the cause for our mental illness? Follow me as I continue to explore Gabor Maté’s thoughts on this topic in my blog at heidiredlcounselling.ca.