No contemporary psychiatrist believes that there is any brain lesion causing any kind of mental illness. This was a hypothesis bandied about a long time ago and simply not supported by any tests or research. Any psychiatrist - and psychiatrists are also trained MDs - knows that this is not true. They also know, or should know, that their 'cures' for anything are, at best, provisional. Most drugs function little better than placebos. But, for some, such as the chronically, severely depressed, they can work. (I know this. I am being treated for what they term Major Depressive Disorder.) Trouble is, prescribing the drug opens up a snake's nest of other side effects which are just as bad as, if not worse than, the so-called mental illness being treated. The field of psychiatry needs a serious overhaul, with a long period of rigorous assessment of methods, diagnoses and treatments, and a long period of serious scientific inquiry. Since psychiatry is trying to measure, describe and fix mental problems - which have no physical causes, and few physical symptoms - they function in a fog, groping for answers that only exist when psychiatrists come to consensus over language. Because language is all they have to describe and define mental problems. I can only conclude one thing, which has to happen before any medical practitioner gets anywhere near understanding, let alone treating mental problems. They have to go to the source, and understand that living conditions of abuse, trauma, prolonged mental and emotional pain are the root causes of mental problems. Whether it's living in a war zone, or living with sexual abuse, or with mental/emotional abuse, that creates trauma in the individual, to which their brain, body and organs react, either in self-defense or out of helplessness. "Mental illness" results, for the most part, from abuse to the individual, and abuse can be anything from environment, to parental actions, to alcohol abuse, to surviving war. These things result in depression. Serotonin and dopamine changes are just symptoms resulting from abusive life conditions. Treating them is treating the symptom, not the cause.
