Psychiatric drugs no magic bullet

'Blunt instrument' treatment pushed by Big Pharma

- CHARLIE PIERRO

A COMMON belief about psychiatric drugs is that they are chemical cures or magic bullets that correct the chemical imbalances that supposedly cause mental distress.

This is not the case.

Reconsidering how these drugs work has important implications for helping people make informed choices about their use.

Psychiatric drugs have become firmly established within modern medicine, and their use is now widespread throughout society. Anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, mood stabilisers and anxiolytics are routinely prescribed for various forms of mental distress and are the treatment that people experiencing such distress are most likely to receive.

Many factors have contributed to this situation. Central among them is the narrative about how these drugs work, and this is often invoked to justify and encourage their use. This narrative presents psychiatric drugs as sophisticated, precision medicines that selectively target the biological dysfunctions that are said to cause mental distress.

To illustrate this narrative, an analogy is often made with the use of insulin in diabetes. Similar to how insulin works by compensating for the body's inability to produce sufficient amounts of that hormone, it is claimed that psychiatric drugs address the bodily dysfunctions that supposedly lead to mental ill-health.

In contrast with insulin, the dysfunction that psychiatric drugs are claimed to correct are chemical imbalances in the brain. In a 'lock and key' type of relationship, each drug is said to target particular neurotransmitters, the brain's chemical messengers, and reestablish the proper functioning and balance of those chemicals.