The theory of the chemical imbalance, which had become widespread by the nineties, has survived for so long perhaps because the reality—that mental illness is caused by an interplay between biological, genetic, psychological, and environmental factors—is more difficult to conceptualize, so nothing has taken its place. In 2022, Thomas Insel, who directed the National Institute of Mental Health for thirteen years, published a book lamenting that, despite great advances in neuroscience, when he left the position in 2015, he realized, “Nothing my colleagues and I were doing addressed the
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