Instead of guessing what I believe or don’t believe, why don’t you just provide a citation to a single study that has ever established a chemical basis for any so-called psychosis or neurosis. If there is any evidence at all, that should be easy to do.
The argument is not about whether chemicals can affect the brain, but whether there are brain chemicals (or chemical imbalances) that cause “mental illness.” Two very different issues.
Hank
1. Ingram, D. G. & Hagemann, T. M. Promethazine treatment of steroid-induced psychosis in a child(2003) Ann Pharmacother 37, 1036-1039.
2. Viswanathan, R. & Glickman, L. Clonazepam in the treatment of steroid-induced mania in a patient after renal transplantation(1989) N Engl J Med 320, 319-320.
3. Turner, P. Steroid-induced psychosis(1989) Lancet 2, 923.
4. Black, A. C. Biochemical mechanisms of steroid-induced psychosis(1982) N Y State J Med 82, 1024.
Although we clearly do not have a definitive answer to the mechanistic basis of many if not most mental diseases, we know with certainty that neural activity is rooted in a complex interplay between brain architecture, neurotransmitters, and a variety of related processes and factors. Why is it so difficult to accept that abnormalities in how these processes work or interact is at the basis of many severe psychiatric diseases? I'm not saying that brain chemistry abnormalities are the cause of all our failings, unhappiness, and poor judgment, but I do believe that there clearly are people who very unfortunately have abnormalities in brain chemistry and that this has a big effect on their mental health. Schizophrenics are on an extreme of that spectrum.