Psychiatrists do not believe that psychotropic drugs fix chemical imbalances in the brain

A book review of Anatomy of an epidemic is critical of Robert Whitaker for "settling for a simple but crude interpretation: those drugs messed you up". There may be some validity in pointing to the "totalising argument" and the "expansive sweep" of his interpretation. Actually, as I've noted before, I think the value of Whitaker's books is the way he describes the evidence for the vulnerability created by taking medication.

Perhaps surprisingly, the reviewer deflects Whitaker's argument by suggesting he knows of "no serious psychiatrist who believes that psychotropic drugs 'fix chemical imbalances in the brains' of their patients". That's good, because as a recent article in Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology points out, theories, such as the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia, have "held the status of a scientific paradigm defended by some with great avidity". The article suggests the psychiatric field "needs to become more self-critical about the validity of its theories". There is a sense in which chemical imbalance theories have persisted despite the contrary evidence. Many patients believe them because they think that's what psychiatrists believe.