so ur saying material conditions has an effect on someones mental health and ssris only make that easier to deal with? :surprised-pika:

The article, I think, confuses two issues.

Firstly, I'll point to the part I agree with - The biochemical reductionist view of mental illness, that says serotonin deficiency (and its interactions with other chemicals) is what causes depression, and thus, SSRIs can cure the disease, is obviously one that suits the pharmaceutical capitalists the most. They do everything in their power to suppress the relationship between our environment and surroundings (which is shaped by capitalism) and our mental state. Thus, their solutions (anti-depressants) can only ever cure the symptoms, and can never fully cure the society of depression.

Yeah.

But the other major point the article claims is that, based on a recent meta-analysis, the Serotonin theory is a failed theory. I.e., serotonin deficiency is not what causes depression. The author instead claims depression is completely a result of capitalism (and specifically neoliberalism). This claim is completely at odds with the dialectical approach between our biochemistry and our socioeconomic conditions which the author centers throughout the article.

It is clear from the article that the author believes in the latter, the dialectical relationship, but as the very first claim of the article is that serotonin is not the cause of depression, the environment remains as the only factor. Which begs the question, even if the environment is the primary cause, what are the changes in our brain as a result of the environment that lead to depression? Not every person in a messed up situation is depressed. And not every person who's depressed is in a messed up situation.

Thus, automatically, biochemistry comes back into the picture once again.

I think, personally, it would've been much better if the author stayed away from the recent meta-analysis completely (except perhaps as a footnote or addendum). Keep the focus on the dialectical relationship between biochemistry and our environment, and show how the focus on the former has only made the pharmaceutical companies billions of dollars while more and more people continue suffering from depression. How Cuba has rejected that reductionist view and has become a leading figure in mental health. Those parts of the article are all very well-done. So, uh, good job.

Marxist scientists Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin

Read The Dialectical Biologist and Biology Under the Influence. Both are such good Marxist philosophy of science books.

ssris never did jack shit for me. sleep meds, on the other hand, have helped me a ton. just a little something ive learned about myself.

For someone who's been "depressed" his whole life, and who's been pigeonholed into "chemical imbalance", I was depressed because I was being bullied and ignored, not because of my brain.

subjectively, I'm inclined to agree; it's not necessarily that Seratonin is the issue, but that SSRIs can cause a sudden change in consciousness that makes the person open to changes. That can also explain why general psychedlics like Psilocybin and Ketamine show such impressive results at treating depression. I credit turning my life around from depression to having a pretty large dose of THC one time. as a counter point though, there are lots of people who abuse those same substances and are still depressed.

Checks out. Sagan was very, very lib (and wrote a lot of shit against dialectics being a super lib academic and tbh not knowing what the word meant) but he wrote something in Demon Haunted World about good science requiring certain conditions to flourish, that's fast diminishing in the west with how money-politics and funding for research structured.

Sociologists, psychologists, some psychiatrists, and others like using 'shit life syndrome' as a catch all for one's conditions, like being in crippling poverty or homeless and such, being contributive toward mental illnesses. We can't escape our environment, biologists of all stripes should know this innately.

On a quick read-through of the article, if depression is not solely as a result of the chemical meme of the brain, then exactly what is depression? What is happening in the brain that's causing someone to seriously consider self-harm or withdraw from life entirely? I will accept that material and environmental influences can cause or exacerbate depression and low mood, but ultimately the brain is still an electrochemical machine whose chemistry is determined by material factors, including genetics. If it's not a lack of serotonin, then is it another brain chemical? Is it something metaphysical? Just doesn't seem all that scientific. Depression has multiple, extremely complex and interlinked "causes", some people don't even know that they're depressed at all. Some of these cause are material, related to poverty, systemic oppression, etc, but sometimes they're caused by grief, loss, bereavement - material to an extent, but no amount of socialism will bring back one's dead relative.

This further raises the question about the cases of depression where antidepressants did result in an improvement in mood and outcomes, so unless we're going to reclassify all these cases as the result of a placebo effect, then we have to acknowledge that serotonin and the drugs that affect its levels do have some degree of efficacy.

What's actually happening in the brain to cause depression?

I didn't actually read this article, but I seem to recall that the meta-analysis study they reference at the beginning being shady. I'm lazy right now and don't feel like digging too much, but I remember the authors of that paper using shoddy evidence to argue against the use of SSRI's and other anti-depressents.