A study of how ordinary people deal with everyday problems through self-mastery and mental health care practices. Everyday suffering—those conditions or feelings brought on by trying circumstances that arise in everyone’s lives—is something that humans have grappled with for millennia. But the last decades have seen a drastic change in the way we approach it. In the past, a person going through a time of difficulty might keep a journal or see a therapist, but now the psychological has been replaced by the biological: instead of treating the heart, soul, and mind, we take a pill to treat the brain. Chemically Imbalanced is a field report on how ordinary people dealing with common problems explain their suffering, how they’re increasingly turning to the thin and mechanistic language of the “body/brain,” and what these encounters might tell us. Drawing on interviews with people dealing with struggles such as underperformance in school or work, grief after the end of a relationship, or disappointment with how their life is unfolding, Joseph E. Davis reveals the profound revolution in consciousness that is underway. We now see suffering as an imbalance in the brain that needs to be fixed, usually through chemical means. This has rippled into our social and cultural conversations, and it has affected how we, as a society, imagine ourselves and envision what constitutes a good life. Davis warns that what we envision as a neurological revolution, in which suffering is a mechanistic problem, has troubling and entrapping consequences. And he makes the case that by turning away from an interpretive, meaning-making view of ourselves, we thwart our chances to enrich our souls and learn important truths about ourselves and the social conditions under which we live. Praise for Chemically Imbalanced “Chemically Imbalanced is an excellent addition to the works in social sciences and humanities that examine the distress of ordinary Americans from the second half of the twentieth century onward, a period when commercialized pills and the psychology-based notion of self-improvement entered the minds of Americans.” —Metascience “Chemically Imbalanced raises important questions, offers new insight into the power and reach of the biomedical model and neurobiological thinking, and I highly recommend it. I encourage readers to assign it, especially in graduate-level mental health and illness classes—or any class looking for a discussion on people’s experiences with suffering and the broad impacts of biomedical thinking and treatment.” —Social Forces

"In The Chemical Imbalance Delusion, Berger presents a fresh and simplified navigational tool on a topic that is often overwhelming to those who have been told they have a chemical imbalance. This book is also a helpful resource for the caretakers, friends, families and others in a relationship with the impacted patient. For me, The Chemical Imbalance Delusion is a book I truly feel that anyone can pick up, read, and learn more about a subject we in the pharmaceutical industry are so passionate about, which is important. It has been my experience, that people who are told that their problems are caused by a chemical imbalance are left searching for answers, understanding, paths forward, help, and hope. This book serves as a well-presented guide and educational tool to help navigate such hardships and discover vital answers." - Katy Sorrells, CQA, Pharmaceutical Quality Engineer"The Nation and its mental disorders are controlled by psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies too often motivated by greed and maintained by pseudoscience. Millions of doses of poison are being sold and pushed on the public-though these chemicals are promoted as necessary medicines. Our only hope is to accept the truths being declared by people like Dr. Daniel Berger who beat the drum of truth loud enough for us to hear. Berger is a voice in the wilderness that must be heard, and this book, The Chemical Imbalance Delusion, needs to be read by everyone." - Joseph M. Cummins, DVM, PHD, Researcher and Pharmacologist"I am indebted to Dr. Berger for his exposé of the engineered deception of Big Pharma and its complicit professionals. I, too, was duped by the supposed pathophysiology of psychiatric disease based on the 'science' of neurotransmitter disequilibrium. While we have been able to quantify dysfunction in other organ symptoms, we as medical professionals and scientists have failed to do the same in the discipline of the mind and the brain. In The Chemical Imbalance Delusion, Dr. Berger has unraveled the morass of this deception steeped in the pursuit of profit and carried out in the name of pride. This information is integral to our care of the psyche/soul of our patients. He has shown that we can no longer, in good conscience, reach into our black box and judicially prescribe medicines that have no good evidence of efficacy and, in fact, cause significant harm to our patients." - Atam Abbi, MD "Dr. Berger's book is a great compilation of undeniable evidence that shows just how misleading the present standard of care is. We, as health care providers, canonly help people if we know and propagate the truth: the pill is NOT the solution. The mind must be renewed! It can be so harmful to take pills for decades and wrongly believe that medication melts away inner conflicts and/or fixes harmful or destructive behaviors. I am grateful to have read The Chemical Imbalance Delusion, as it clarifies so much of what I had suspected all these years; this discovery makes me enthusiastic, since it also encourages me to share my faith in the Lord who alone renews the mind." - Christina Biester, MD and Clinical Supervisor

This book overturns the idea that psychiatric drugs work by correcting chemical imbalance and analyzes the professional, commercial and political vested interests that have shaped this view. It provides a comprehensive critique of research on drugs including antidepressants, antipsychotics and mood stabilizers.

Brain chemical imbalances have been widely promoted as existing in depression for the past 50 years. In this book, Terry Lynch reveals some shocking truths. Chemical imbalances have never been found to exist in depression. The story of the rise of this falsehood is presented, a falsehood that is more prevalent in modern times then the flat earth delusion was in the past. This falsehood meets psychiatry's own criteria for a delusion. Adhering to principles of logic and science, Terry Lynch illustrates the absurdity of this widely held belief. He includes many references of doctors, other mental health professionals, the media and influential individuals espousing this falsehood as a known fact. He also included statements made by prominent doctors, scientists, psychologists and others over the past fifty years, expressing great concern that this falsehood has been widely misrepresented as if it were a fact, not least by members of the medical profession. The book addresses why drug companies are withdrawing from psychiatric research, who are the big winners and losers, and whether doctors have sufficient knowledge to justify their standing as THE foremost mental health experts. The author describes the major adverse consequences of the depression brain chemical imbalance delusion, and why this and other related mental health delusions must be removed from the mental health landscape, in the public interest. The author presents a better way of understanding and responding to depression, based on what is actually there, rather than on fanciful notions of brain chemical notions that have never been demonstrated to exist. "

THE STORY: A darkly comic adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . In Victorian England, repressed impulses burst their corsets as Dr. Jekyll's experiments in the nature of evil threaten to reveal the b

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER: A radically new way of thinking about depression and anxiety 'A book that could actually make us happy' SIMON AMSTELL 'This amazing book will change your life' ELTON JOHN 'One of the most important texts of recent years' BRITISH JOURNAL OF GENERAL PRACTICE 'Brilliant, stimulating, radical' MATT HAIG 'The more people read this book, the better off the world will be' NAOMI KLEIN 'Wonderful' HILLARY CLINTON 'Eye-opening' GUARDIAN 'Brilliant for anyone wanting a better understanding of mental health' ZOE BALL 'A game-changer' DAVINA MCCALL 'Extraordinary' DR MAX PEMBERTON Depression and anxiety are now at epidemic levels. Why? Across the world, scientists have uncovered evidence for nine different causes. Some are in our biology, but most are in the way we are living today. Lost Connections offers a radical new way of thinking about this crisis. It shows that once we understand the real causes, we can begin to turn to pioneering new solutions – ones that offer real hope.