It’s often claimed that mental illnesses derivate from a ‘’chemical imbalance’’ on the brain –that occurs when there’s either too much or too little of certain chemicals, called neurotransmitters- but that would be diminishing how complex those disorders are. In fact, APA (American Psychiatric Association) defended in 2005 that ‘’the exact causes of mental disorders are unknown’’. In that same year, Drs Thomas Insel and Remi Quirion proposed that mental disorders need to be ‘’addressed as disorders of distributed brain systems with symptoms forged by developmental and social experiences.”
Pies, RW. (2014, April) Nuances, Narratives, and the ‘’Chemical Imbalance’’ Debate [Blog Post.] Retrieved from https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/nuances-narratives-and-chemical-imbalance-debate (last accessed on 13th October 2020)
Mental illnesses don’t simply result from an amount of certain brain chemicals, but of a set of probable causes, such ‘’as faulty mood regulation by the brain; genetic vulnerability; stressful life events such as a history of physical, psychological, or emotional abuse; medications; medical problems genetics; family history; having a history of alcohol or illicit drug use and taking certain medications psychosocial factors, such as external circumstances that lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness’’.
Harvard University. (2009, June) What causes depression? Harvard Health Publishing Retrieved from https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/what-causes-depression; Eske, J. (2019, September) Everything you need to know about chemical imbalances in the brain, Medical News Today Retrieved from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326475#myths (last accessed on 13th October 2020)
However, chemicals are involved, it’s just not as simple as ‘’one chemical being too low and another too high”, but of millions and billions of chemical reactions working both inside and outside of nerve cells. There are specific areas of the brain that regulate it so scientists believe that the cause of these disorders might lie in the nerve cell connections, nerve cell growth and functioning of nerve circuits rather than on levels of brain chemicals. The use of antidepressants supports this theory because despite the immediate increase of chemical messengers on the brain, the patients take several weeks or longer to feel results. The researchers started to question why; if depression was only the result of low levels of neurotransmitters, how come people didn’t feel better as soon as their number is increased? They then progressed their theory to ‘’the real value of these medications may be in generating new neurons (a process called neurogenesis), strengthening nerve cell connections, and improving the exchange of information between nerve circuits. If that's the case, depression medications could be developed that specifically promote neurogenesis, with the hope that patients would see quicker results than with current treatments.’’ However, the understanding of the neurological function influence in disorders is incomplete and therefore, susceptible to change.
Burns, D.D. (2017, December). Do depression and anxiety result from a Chemical Imbalance in the brain? [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://feelinggood.com/2017/12/12/do-depression-and-anxiety-result-from-a-chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain/ (last accessed on 13th October 2020)
Professor David D. Burns, a winner of A. E. Bennett Award from the Society for Biological Psychiatry, among others, dedicated a long time of his life studying the chemical imbalance theory but stopped when he ‘’realized that the chemical imbalance theory was not a productive or valid.’’ In one of his clinical studies, he flooded the brains of depressed veterans with serotonin – a neurotransmitter that was believed to cause depression when in deficiency- but there was no effect on their moods or disease. This led him to believe that the theory wasn’t accurate and he now defends that although there are biological brain disorders, he finds unlikely that mental disorders are a ‘’chemical imbalance’’ since the brain itself it’s not a ‘hydraulic system of balances and imbalances.’’. Instead, he thinks that ‘’Everything about being human results from biological (genetic) and environmental influences—such as IQ, personality, height, hair colour, and the proclivity to being naturally more negative in outlook (depression, anxiety, shyness, anger) or more naturally positive (happy, confident, outgoing). However, we do not yet have much understanding of the brain systems that are involved. To what extent is depression the result of problems with our hardware (tissue level brain abnormalities or damage) vs. software (learning, neural circuitry, etc.)? We just don’t know.’’
Burns, D.D. (2017, December). Do depression and anxiety result from a Chemical Imbalance in the brain? [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://feelinggood.com/2017/12/12/do-depression-and-anxiety-result-from-a-chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain/ (last accessed on 13th October 2020)
Depression
Visibility of Voices
There are some young activists that advocate for mental health, which is very important to talk about, and teenagers are the ones who can change the taboo that exists around it. Their voices must be heard and must have the visibility they deserve, so we chose two young women to talk about what they do and how they became interested in mental health, Amanda Southworth and Gabby Frost.
Amanda Southworth
Amanda Southworth is a 19-year-old developer, designer and creator as well as a human rights and mental health activist. She has created multiple apps to help marginalized communities and people with mental disorders. She started programming noticeably young, since it helped her stop feeling like a burden to other people and fighting her anoréxia, anxiety and depression that until that point had made her attempt to commit suicide numerous times.
Her activism and programming have led her to receive several awards and opportunities, including being selected for Teen Vogue’s 21 under 21 in 2017 and being the Keynote Speaker at Philadelphia Conference for Women in 2018. This young woman has also hosted a gun violence protest event in front of the Los Angeles Town Hall.
Her first app, anxiety helper, has already reached over 350,000 people and its meant to be a supplementary tool in fighting mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, OCD and PTSD. It provides a range of resources for example links to crises hotlines, tips for handling panic attacks and overall tools to manage day to day life. The app also gives educational contents on mental disorders, outsources people to therapy and has received many positive reviews from its users.
Besides anxietyhelper, Amanda created another app called Verena (meaning protector in German) meant for the protection of the LGBTQ+ community which provides users information about safe places like hospitals, police stations, refuges for times of need for example after hate crimes, abuse, bullying, and others.
The young entrepreneur is also the founder and executive director of Astra Labs, a software development company whose goal is to “build a tech-based solution to all the major issues in the world”.
Atra Labs. Retrieved from https://www.withastra.org/ (last accessed on 20th October 2020).
They use technology and design and program apps in order to remove systemic or societal barriers that affect marginalized communities, along with providing free classes and toolkits to educate people. Their apps and other projects have reached over 4 million people and have built a community with 6,000 people across various platforms, while also being supported by companies like CNN, MTV, Teen Vogue, USA Today Network and the App Store.
Gabby Frost
"Gabby Frost, 22, is the founder and CEO of Buddy Project, a non-profit organization aiming to prevent suicide and raise awareness for mental health."
Frost, G. Gabby Frost: about [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.gabbyfrost.com/about (last accessed on 16th October 2020, 14:48)
One night, Gabby was scrolling through her Twitter when she saw tweets from three girls who had suicidal thoughts, and after that, she discovered that some of her friends from school dealt with mental illnesses. Gabby thought that pairing teens and young adults with a buddy, not as therapy or counselling it was the best because she wanted to help young people develop positive peer support relationships and to prevent suicide in young teens.
This was one of the reasons she founded the Buddy Project which was created in 2013, and another reason was that she wished young people were listened to and that the society were understood how they felt since mental health at that time it was, even more, a taboo topic.
"She didn’t want to wait around for someone else to think of something"(Buddy Project. About: Our Story. Retrieved from http://www.buddy-project.org/about (last accessed on 19th October 2020, 11:36)) so Gabby took the initiative and decided to begin a social media movement which was the Buddy Project that just becomes a non-profit organization in 2015.
Since its launch, over 233,00 people have signed up for a buddy and Gabby is currently building an app to pair buddies that she expects it to launch by the beginning of the next year.
To influence young people, she regularly tweets about mental health awareness and advocacy and Gabby believes the next step is bringing mental health to every school because she thinks "So many young people may not realize they have a mental illness until they're much older, it's never talked about until it's too late.".
Gabby has won multiple awards and honors for her work with Buddy Project which has been featured on Teen Vogue, Instagram, and The Oprah Magazine, for example.
