Dr. Joanna Moncrieff is a British psychiatrist and author of “Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth.” She challenges the long-held belief that depression is caused by a lack of the hormone serotonin. According to Dr. Moncrieff, the serotonin myth was started in the 1960s, then picked up by the pharmaceutical industry in the 1990s and widely propagated by them as part of their campaign to sell a new generation of antidepressants. Contrary to what many people still believe, there’s no evidence that depression is caused by a lack of serotonin in the brain. Dr. Moncrieff says there’s no consistent or convincing evidence in any areas of research for any association between serotonin and depression, which is why she calls it a myth. So what causes depression if not a lack of serotonin? Dr. Moncrieff insists it’s not a biological disease, but a normal reaction that anyone may experience at times throughout life. “It’s not something that we naturally just get over in a couple of weeks. It can take weeks and months of grieving, even for a short-term relationship that’s finished.” The tragedy is that people have been misinformed and misled, whether deliberately or not. Dr. Moncrieff cautions that people need to be really well informed to make a decision about whether to start a drug or not, and she believes when it comes to Serotonin they’re inadequately informed.
