Why it is important to discuss what antidepressants do
BMJ 2022; 379 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o2350 (Published 03 October 2022) Cite this as: BMJ 2022;379:o2350
- Joanna Moncrieff, professor of critical and social psychiatry and consultant psychiatrist,
- Mark Horowitz, honorary clinical research fellow in psychiatry
- Division of Psychiatry, University College London, Maple House, London W1T 7NF, UK
- j.moncrieff{at}ucl.ac.uk
Kendrick and Collinson suggest that we overstepped the data in discussion of the relevance of our serotonin paper to antidepressant use.12 The serotonin hypothesis was propagated by drug companies and academics as a rationale for why people should take antidepressants. It is still widely disseminated,3 but the evidence is unconvincing. No other biological hypotheses for depression are proved or accepted.4
If there is no conclusive evidence that antidepressants work by reversing an underlying abnormality, we must consider other plausible explanations for how they might …
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