Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health30 Apr 2025

Chemically Imbalanced: Joanna Moncrieff on the Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth

Welcome to this Mad in America podcast. My name is Robert Whitaker, and I'm happy today to have the pleasure of speaking with Joanna Moncrieff.

Dr. Moncrieff is a psychiatrist who works in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. She is a Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at University College, London.

In 1990 she co-founded the Critical Psychiatry Network, which today has about 400 psychiatrist members, about two-thirds of whom are in the United Kingdom. From my perspective, the Critical Psychiatry Network has been at the forefront of making a broad critique of the disease model of care. Without this network, I don't think that critique would be anywhere near as prominent or as sophisticated as it is today.

Dr. Moncrieff is a prolific researcher and writer. Her books include De-Medicalizing Misery, The Bitterest Pills: The Troubling Story of Antipsychotic Drugs, and The Myth of the Chemical Cure.

Her latest book is titled Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth. This book in many ways is a follow-up to her 2022 paper which looked at the serotonin story and concluded that there was no good evidence that a serotonergic deficiency was a primary cause of depression. It caused quite a furor within the media and in psychiatry.

***

A full transcript of this interview is availabe here: https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/04/chemically-imbalanced-joanna-moncrieff-making-unmaking-serotonin-myth/

Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. https://www.madinamerica.com/donate/

To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(308)

When Stopping Prescription Drugs Isn't Simple: Alicia Martin and the TaperMate Story

Alicia Martin is an Australian community pharmacist, a member of the Not Broken Project and founder of TaperMate. Through her work in pharmacy, Alicia saw patients struggling with unusual and severe s...

16 Sep 34min

First-Person Knowledge and the Meanings of Madness: An Interview with Gail Hornstein

Gail Hornstein is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Mount Holyoke College. Across a long and influential career, her work has moved between psychology, psychoanalysis, history, qualitative research, ...

2 Sep 1h 8min

Mad Studies Is More Than Lived Experience: An Interview with Merrick Daniel Pilling

Merrick Daniel Pilling is an Associate Professor and Interim Co-Director of the School of Disability Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. He is the author of Queer and Trans Madness: Struggles ...

19 Aug 49min

The West Doesn't Have All the Answers: An Interview with Dinesh Bhugra

Dinesh Bhugra is a leading voice in social and cultural psychiatry. He is Emeritus Professor of Mental Health and Cultural Diversity at King's College London and has served as president of the Royal ...

12 Aug 36min

Go/No Go - How Mental Health Research Took a Wrong Turn: An Interview with Marianne Apostolides

Marianne Apostolides is the award-winning author of eight books, four of which have been translated and published internationally. She is a two-time recipient of the Chalmers Arts Fellowship and winne...

29 Jul 48min

Unlearn Your Pain: Harnessing the Power of Neuroplasticity – A Conversation With Howard Schubiner

Welcome to the Mad in America podcast. My name is Brooke Siem, and I am the author of the award-winning memoir on antidepressant withdrawal, May Cause Side Effects. Today, I'm excited to have Dr. Howa...

15 Jul 41min

The Empire of Madness: Why Psychiatry Must Rethink Human Suffering - An Interview with Khameer Kidia

Khameer Kidia is a physician and an anthropologist, works at Harvard Medical School and the University of Zimbabwe, and spends his life between Washington DC and Harare. Kidia has many accolades to hi...

8 Jul 48min

A Mother's Journey Through Psychiatric Drug Harm and Healing

Chelsea McVeigh began her journey with psychiatric medications at 16, never imagining where it would lead. At 31, during a new pregnancy, she suffered a severe adverse reaction that turned her world u...

1 Jul 24min