Is Depression Really a Chemical Imbalance?
Care Visions Family Talk with Professor Joanna Moncrieff
In this episode of Care Visions Family Talk, Lucy Johnston speaks with psychiatrist, researcher and author Professor Joanna Moncrieff about the serotonin theory of depression, her 2022 review of the evidence and why she believes antidepressants may alter or blunt emotions rather than correct an underlying chemical abnormality.
Please find below the video from the talk and also the audio podcast.
Professor Joanna Moncrieff is Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at University College London and a consultant psychiatrist working in the NHS in London.
Her research explores the effects, actions, uses and representation of psychiatric drugs, including antidepressants and antipsychotics. She has also written extensively on the history and philosophy of psychiatry.
Professor Moncrieff has led and collaborated on major research projects funded by the UK and Australian governments, focusing on helping people reduce and stop taking psychiatric drugs. She is also widely known for her work challenging the chemical imbalance hypothesis of depression.
In 1998, Professor Moncrieff co-founded the Critical Psychiatry Network, an international group of doctors and psychiatrists who question reductive biomedical approaches to mental health. She is a leading figure in the Critical Psychiatry movement.
Prof Moncrieff has published several books: Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth, The Myth of the Chemical Cure, The Bitterest Pills and A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs.
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