Yes, for some people antipsychotics, antidepressants, etc. are a godsend and the difference between living a mostly normal and productive life vs. jumping off a bridge, dying in a homeless encampment because they cannot feed themselves, or committing violent acts against others. To clarify, none of these are hyperbole or exaggeration -- those are two extremes on outcome with mental health issues and antipsychotics can be the difference between the two.
That being said, many, if not most, physicians I have worked with agree with the parent comment. For many patients these medications are not effective and are used as chemical restraints [0] rather than with the goal of normalizing their mental health. Eventually the logic becomes "we'll never fix them, but we can sedate them so much they won't hurt themselves or others" so dosages progressively increase until the patient becomes more sedated and somewhat zombie like. This isn't hospital specific; I have seen it across 3-4 different hospitals in different states. Neuroscience and psychiatry is a very young field and the truth is that we do not know what causes mental health issues or how to deal with them. The chemical imbalance theory is just that, a theory, and more importantly, one with very little scientific proof and backing [1].
[0] https://www.medicinenet.com/what_is_an_example_of_chemical_r... [1] https://www.healthline.com/health/chemical-imbalance-in-the-...
Serotonin you may say? Okay, how much is the correct amount of serotonin then? Can you just give me a test to see if I have the right amount?
What’s going on here is not quantifiable science. It’s throw something at the wall and see what sticks.
Yes basically throw something at the wall and hoping it stick.
Yes, modern medicine has a large component of throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks.
If it sticks, and it passes all the usual clinical trials to prove it does more good than harm, it's approved, even if we don't understand exactly why it works.
For the record, the treatment plan my cardiologist put me on was explained as "all these things seem correlated with not having heart attacks so we'll just do them all and hope it helps you".
These people are fighting for their lives, and are taken advantage of by an industry. It also doesn't help that plenty of antipsychotics are crucial for people to take, but that's because those are drugs that actually make it difficult to think for people whose thoughts get out of control. They don't claim to be eradicating the chemicals or deficiencies of chemicals that cause all psychosis.
The tactic of pharmaceutical companies creating patients' groups to get sufferers together and lobby "on their behalf" has been going on since the 80s. It's bulletproof, and impossible to attack. In the case of antidepressants, they've also guided them into defending these drugs as a class, rather than on an individual basis.
Funded patients' groups also played a huge part in the prescription opiate epidemic; it doesn't matter how much science says that long-term opiates aren't helping chronic pain, you have to be heartless to dismiss someone with a known painful condition or injury when they're pleading for opiates. Even though you know that people who had nothing wrong with them before going on opiates would plead just as intensely.
On another note, there is one thing you are absolutely incorrect about: antipsychotics are not ineffective managing many mental health disorders. Large clinical trials are done before these drugs are even approved for the sole purpose of proving they are better than no treatment.