Now More than Ever, It's Not in Your Head!

A brief review of the evidence that the world is driving us crazy

I think we are at a tipping point in the narrative of mental health. For a few decades, the pharmacological model has prevailed, largely thanks to lobbying, billions in advertising and a media willing to promote overly simplistic views of the supposed revolution taking place in mental health. Psychopharmaceutical prescriptions skyrocketed, diagnoses of all kinds skyrocketed, and pretty much everyone came to believe in the chemical imbalance theory of mental health. But now, it’s not rare for the media to publish correctives to all this, for the public to speak out about how psychopharmacology has affected them, and for science to essentially conclude the last 30 years of theorizing has been, essentially, wrong (serotonin probably doesn’t even play a major role in depression maybe?? whoops!) 

So, then, what the fuck is going on? Why are we sad and depressed and anxious all the time? That question will take a long time to untangle, but it’s nice to see that people are finally saying “look outward” instead of “look inward.”