Is There a Chemical Balance?

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i agree with you wand you sort of start to see multiple things s that all have the same symptom profile. There was a johns hopkins study that looked at skipatients diagnose is scit phrenia and they were reassessed by another clinic, and half of them were given diagnoses mood disorders or anxiety. Can't tell them apart exactly. So clearly there's something that could be biological. But what thomas insell said is that we will never find it with d s m diagnoses, because they're hypothetical. We'll never prove the chemical and balance theory or biology of a d s m diagnosis, but possibly mental illness, right?

Sarah Fay is an author and activist. Her writing appears in many publications, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time Magazine, The New Republic, Longreads, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, The Millions, McSweeney’s, The Believer, and The Paris Review, where she served as an advisory editor. She is currently on the faculty of the English departments at Northwestern University and DePaul University.

In this episode, Eric and Sarah discuss her book: Pathological: A True Story of Six Misdiagnoses

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Sarah Fay and I Discuss the Challenges of Mental Health Diagnoses and…

Her book, Pathological: A True Story of Six Misdiagnoses
Defining mental illness and how mental health diagnoses come from the book, “Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM).
Her many diagnoses of mental health disorders in her lifetime
How DSM diagnoses lack validity and reliability
How chemical imbalance theory has been debunked and cannot be proven
The problems with primary care physicians diagnosing psychiatric conditions and overprescribing
How mental illness diagnoses can often become our identity
The different schools of thought on treating mental health conditions with medication
Emotions are vibrations in our bodies and responses to our thoughts
Pathological: The Movement and the three important questions to ask yourself

Sarah Fay Links:

Sarah’s Website

Pathological: The Movement

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If you enjoyed this conversation with Sarah Fay you might also enjoy these other episodes:

Rethinking Mental Health with Eric Maisel

Gabe Howard on Mental Health

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