In less enlightened times, people assumed that mental and emotional distress — severe anxiety and depression, for example — had no cause, other than maybe supernatural. Today, it’s assumed that these are totally caused by brain chemistry. But has it occurred to anyone that something gives rise to the brain chemistry?
To look at the state or order of your neurotransmitters in the brain does not necessarily tell you the cause of your emotional state. These might actually be the consequences, or manifestations, of your mental state. It still doesn’t tell you the cause. The cause could actually be … your ideas, your beliefs, your assumptions. Psychiatry forgot that humans have minds, and minds are filled with ideas — and that ideas have consequences. The experts forgot, but you shouldn’t.