I often wonder how this pill of falsehood about chemical imbalances in the brain causes mental disorders gets swallowed by nurses. We so quickly accept ideas because they show up in medical journals. Not many of us even read the article in full. We’d rather read the summary or abstract and decide from there. We take such things as face value and don’t add our critical thinking skills to the mix. Nurses aren’t taught research methods unless you go on to a Masters and Doctorate program. Even then, the site’s of our critical thinking isn’t turned to substantiate findings from researchers.
From an article in FSU.com, Jill Elish writes that this theory of chemical imbalance is being challenged at least in this one Florida University. She quotes Jeffrey Lacasse, an FSU doctoral candidate and Jonathon Leo, PhD in physiology and professor of neuroanatomy at Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee. I think the article should be considered by nurses and particularly psychiatric nurses. I give you one quote here and hope you read the article and rethink what we are doing to our mentally ill:
“The media’s presentation of the theory as fact is troublesome because it misrepresents the current status of the theory,” Lacasse said. “For instance, there are few scientists who will rise to its defense, and some prominent psychiatrists publicly acknowledge that the serotonin hypothesis is more metaphor than fact. As the current study documents, when asked for evidence, reporters were unable to cite peer-reviewed primary articles in support of the theory”.
Where is the science behind drugging millions of sufferers from depression and anxiety?