The idea that psychiatry believes depression to be a "chemical imbalance" is a myth. It's a common strawman argument against psychiatry or SSRIs, but the truth is that the field of psychiatry doesn't put much weight on "chemical imbalance" takes.
More information in this article: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/debunking-two-chemical...
> I'm more intrigued by the studies coming out about Ketamine, psybicilin, marijuana therapies, as a new angle to augment antidepressants and other prescriptions.
Ketamine is interesting as a short-term rescue for severe cases, but it's not a long-term solution. Some doctors are trialing long-term maintenance therapy, but the effects tend to wane over time and tolerance is a major issue. Most providers who use ketamine will use it to kick-start regular treatment.
Marijuana is not a treatment for depression and should not be viewed as such.
Plenty of psychiatrists still assume mental illness of all sorts are primarily caused by chemical imbalance, which is why so many of them solely rely on chemicals to treat mental illness.
"Schizophrenia is caused by a chemical imbalance and other changes in the brain."[1]
[1]https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...
Neurotransmitters secreted by lipid-bound sacs (cells) packed with protein and sugar, arranged in vicinity of each other based on chemical and electrical (chemical influx/action potential) pulses.
We abstract the chemistry from a machine-code level (raw, chaotic, biochemistry) up to medicine's version of brain C++ (neuroscience), and then brain Python (psychology).
And, so, sure, maybe mental illness isn't simple chemistry (only a matter of one or two neurotransmitters a little off-kilter), but everything happening in your brain right now is chemistry, and so deviations from normal must therefore be a matter of chemistry.
I would argue that calling it an imbalance or whatever is just a matter of semantics, but everything we see, and are, and do, and perceive is chemistry and changes in the chemistry (imbalances, whatever you want to call it) influence everything we see, and are, and do, and perceive.
At a low level with current technology, we can tweak individual neurotransmitters pharmacologically (SSRI). With things like CBT we can try to tweak the chemistry in a more complex manner, and at a higher level of abstraction (changing wiring of chemical and electro-chemical synapses via chemically-mediated long-term potentiation/depression).
So, I want to try to make the argument that it's less a matter of whether you address chemical imbalances or not, but rather at what level of abstraction you address the chemical imbalances.
I'm genuinely not trying to be a pedantic douchebag. I'm just trying to argue that it's all the same shit, just at different levels of abstraction.
That is a theory, not a scientific fact.
The current state of physics tells us we do not understand the fundamental nature of matter.
The current state of neuroscience tells us we do not understand the fundamental nature of consciousness either.
So saying "consciousness is just chemicals" is like saying "bankum is just gobledeygook"; the terms are not fully understood or defined on a fundamental level.
Some people say consciousness is just matter, others say matter is just consciousness.
I do find it peculiarly interesting that it is seemingly inherently impossible to isolate and control for consciousness as a scientific variable
If you don't have access to the source code, and you're just watching the program running, it's this magical thing that behaves in a way you're not entirely sure of. The software architecture is filtered through the UI, and so you can't be 100% sure exactly what's going on in there.
But, at the end of the day, regardless of the zeroes and ones, it's all just electricity flowing through logic gates on a silicon chip.
The program may mimic consciousness (and be indistinguishable from it in a practical sense - in which case, is it not conscious?), it may talk to you, it may display fantastical images, but at its heart is a silicon chip made of logic gates.
So, consciousness in a living thing may be something mystical and intangible when you're observing it, but drill a hole in the skull and biopsy the tissue, and it's just a collection of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus molecules arranged in a particular structure that conveys electrical patterns.
Similarly, I can eat a sandwich and it's somehow turned into me and that's magical. But if I open a biochem textbook it starts looking less like magic, and more like a complex interplay of biochemical pathways. I can administer some carbon triple-bonded to nitrogen and boom the pathways grind to a halt. I can administer a molecule with a ring structure and a nitrogen and a methyl group, and boom it ramps into overdrive.
I think that the word consciousness is part of the problem. It's a tremendously vague and ephemeral word. It comprises personality, memory, behavior, etc., all of which are variables that can be pharmacologically and electrically manipulated.
Reality itself, well, iono. I'm sure they have a pill for that.