Unlike physical illnesses, with clear symptoms and biological markers, mental disorders are very different. Here, to a much greater extent, it is we humans who decide what counts as pathological and what falls within the range of the normal, and which symptoms we should be looking for.
Where do we draw the line between clinical depression and “ordinary human unhappiness” to borrow Freud’s phrase? Between restlessness and ADHD? Between shyness and social anxiety? Between eccentric conspiracy theories, unusual religiosity, and psychosis?
That these boundaries are fluid, is evident in the way diagnostic manuals swell with each new edition, adding new disorders and ever‑longer checklists of symptoms.
Have we fallen into the trap of thinking that mental illnesses are of the same kind as physical ones? That they have clear, concrete symptoms and biological or neurological causes that we should primarily treat with drugs?
Are there better ways to understand mental and psychological suffering? And are we in danger of medicalizing problems that, at their core, stem from life crises, social pressures – or that are simply part of what it means to be human?
Joanna Moncrieff is a British psychiatrist and a leading voice in the Critical Psychiatry Network. She is the author of The Myth of the Chemical Cure (2007), The Bitterest Pills (2013), and Chemically Imbalanced – The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth (2025). She is also an active public commentator in the UK, with articles in outlets such as The Guardian and The Spectator.
Jan Ivar Røssberg is a professor at the University of Oslo and a senior consultant in psychiatry at Oslo University Hospital. He serves on the board of the Norwegian Psychiatric Association.
This debate is connected to the event “Chemically imbalanced – The making and unmaking of the serotonin myth” on Friday.
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