https://xcancel.com/DrJessTaylor/status/2086045181128671418
I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN!!
Proof that in 2026, the same falsehoods are still being used - despite us all being told that psychiatrists never use the brain chemical imbalance myth.
In 2022, Moncrieff et al. published a major umbrella review finding no convincing evidence that depression is caused by low serotonin or a serotonin “chemical imbalance.” Psychiatrists actually responded defensively by saying ‘no one believed that anyway!!’
Courts should not be told that someone’s behaviour, violence or offending can be explained by a supposed serotonin imbalance as though this is established biological fact.
When outdated or unsupported psychiatric theories are presented as scientific explanations in criminal trials, they risk misleading judges and juries and turning complex human behaviour into a simplistic story about a broken brain.
A courtroom is no place for debunked neuroscience and psychiatric twaddle.
Secondly though - those of us who are critical of psychiatry are told that this theory was never pushed and people were never told that they have a brain chemical imbalance! I’ve even been told that I’m making this up, and patients have never been told this by psychiatrists.
So I’m posting this for proof in 2026 that this is still being used in a criminal trial. By a psychiatrist.
For those of you new to this information and didn’t know that the serotonin theory was ‘abandoned’ - this is because psychiatrists and psychiatric regulatory bodies never publicly corrected the information even once they knew it was wrong. Lots of doctors are still telling their patients that they have serotonin brain chemical imbalances every single day.
It is highly likely that our ‘mental health’ is not the result of some obscure brain chemical imbalance, but is instead a reaction to our circumstances - but maybe that’s not a sexy enough explanation.
