What Americans Aren’t Told About Psychiatric Medications | Robert Whitaker
American Thought Leaders
The Epoch Times
4.9 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 December 2025
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For the past half century, Americans have been told that psychiatric drugs fix chemical imbalances in the brain. But this is nothing but a myth, says journalist Robert Whitaker.
Whitaker is the publisher of MadInAmerica.com and is known for his influential critiques of modern psychiatry and psychiatric drug treatment.
It was hypothesized that depression was due to too little serotonin and that schizophrenia was caused by too much dopamine—and that drugs could fix that, just like insulin for diabetes. But that was never backed up by evidence, Whitaker said.
“That was the story that was used to sell a whole second generation of psychiatric drugs and dramatically expand the psychiatric enterprise worldwide,” he said.
In 1999, Whitaker co-wrote a series of articles for the Boston Globe on psychiatric research and became a finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, thereby establishing his reputation in this field. Later, he served as director of publications at Harvard Medical School.
“We have this story that we’re making great progress in diagnosing and treating mental disorders,” he told me.
U.S. spending on treating mental disorders has risen substantially over the past decades, from tens of billions in the late 1980s to more than $100 billion per year today. But there is no evidence, he says, that these drugs improve long-term outcomes. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence that psychiatric drugs can actually make things worse, he says.
“They actually cause chemical imbalances, increase the chronicity of disorders, increase functional impairment, and you see rising disability rates wherever you see this paradigm of care adopted,” he says.
Certain antipsychotics for schizophrenia, for instance, can actually reduce brain tissue, particularly in the first year, and that’s been associated with cognitive decline and a worsening of symptoms.
Evidence shows that other countries, including developing nations, that have not adopted this same approach have seen much better outcomes, he says.
In this episode, he breaks down his findings from decades of studying this issue. Whitaker is the author of “Mad in America” and “Anatomy of an Epidemic.”
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Can you just show me where you found that, say, too much dopamine is the cause of schizophrenia? |
| 0:07.0 | Or can you show me where you actually found that too little serotonin is the cause of depression? |
| 0:12.0 | Here's what they said. Oh, we didn't actually find that. |
| 0:16.0 | That's a metaphor for explaining why they should take the drugs, like insulin for diabetes. |
| 0:20.9 | In this episode, I sit down with medicine and science journalist Robert Whitaker, author |
| 0:26.2 | of Anatomy of an Epidemic and Mad in America. So that's the biggest irony of this whole |
| 0:32.2 | story. The drugs actually induce an abnormality hypothesized to cause the problem in the first place. |
| 0:38.3 | Whitaker challenges the idea that mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, |
| 0:43.3 | and argues that some psychiatric drugs cause long-term harm. |
| 0:47.3 | I was a believer in the narrative. |
| 0:50.3 | I was a reporter who called up scientists and quoted what they said, |
| 0:55.8 | and I began down a different path of challenging that narrative |
| 0:59.0 | when I began to find evidence that that belied that narrative of progress. |
| 1:03.0 | He calls for a shift toward alternative interventions |
| 1:06.0 | and a more holistic approach to mental health. |
| 1:09.0 | What happened to you after you published Mad in America? |
| 1:12.6 | This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yanya Kellick. |
| 1:16.6 | Robert Whitaker, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. |
| 1:21.6 | Well, thanks for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here. |
| 1:24.6 | What would you say is the biggest myth around mental health or psychiatry today? |
| 1:33.3 | I think the myth that has become, is most well known, was the story that the drugs fix chemical imbalances in the brain. |
| 1:42.3 | So for example, depression was due to too little serotonin and drugs that up serotonerbalances in the brain. So for example, depression was due to too little serotonin, |
... |
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