Not long ago, journalist Robert Whitaker uncovered evidence that the drug companies’ long-standing narrative of chemical imbalances in the brain being the explanation for mental illnesses, was a fraud. The way in which Mr. Whitaker accomplished this was by subpoenaing clinical trial results from drugs developed after Prozac. To the drug companies’ chagrin, those other drugs had not born out the story concocted by the drug companies, following the wild success of Prozac. Thus, the drug companies saw to it that the public never found out about these inconvenient flops, and the public didn’t until Robert Whitaker got his hands on them. Due to a confluence of developments, (none the least of which is the impact Robert Whitaker has had,) it’s become popular to state that, “the pendulum is now swinging,” away from the medical model.
Nonetheless, it’s very disconcerting that critics of chemical imbalances fail to suggest an actual alternative. Sigmund Freud postulated that mental illnesses were the result of traumas suffered in early childhood. When one abandons the imbalance theory, one then reverts back to Freud’s explanation for trauma, and the chemical imbalance theory may simply be a more elaborate biological articulation for what Freud was talking about. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive; one could be the etiology for the other. What I find much more upsetting is the crooked way in which the medical model is publically implemented, thanks to drug company permissiveness.
To be honest with everybody, it’s only been recently that a clear picture of how the public perceives mental patients has crystallized in my mind. This has been in spite of the fact that I’ve been on the receiving end of that perception for years.
The scenery is always set for the drama of the drug companies and their henchmen’s derogation of patients’ lives. In order to maximize profits, the drug companies have successfully sought the collaboration of the news media, the networks, and Hollywood in publically devaluing the lives of patients. Such circumstances are what are necessary in order to maximize those profits. Such is the landscape. There isn’t anyone who doesn’t think mental patients are the silliest things they’ve ever set eyes on. Nobody takes a mental patient seriously. Given this, it’s easy to see why patients are treated with the callousness, cynicism, and sarcasm we always are.
Robert Whitaker has challenged the hitherto-presumed saintliness of the drug companies. However, mere high school graduate and amateur that I am, maybe the chemical imbalance theory does have merit after all, and sadly, the TV networks, the news media, and Hollywood are critically dependent on the revenue they get from pharmaceuticals.
