On Loss, Grief, and Betrayal: Psychiatric Survivors Reflect on the Impact of New Serotonin Study

A Guest article about Moncrieff’s Serotonin theory of depression (Molecular Psychiatry) by Janusz Rybakowski

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Observing the destructive activity of Joanna Moncrieff over the last three decades, she deserves rightly to be named an „enfant terrible” of contemporary psychopharmacology. However, she may be reminded of an oriental proverb: “The dogs bark but the caravan moves on”. „The caravan” presumably pertains to contemporary psychopharmacology, where, paraphrasing Mark Twain, the reports on its fall are greatly exaggerated.

In my opinion, the recent article in Molecular Psychiatry [1] can be regarded as the greatest media success of Joanna Moncrieff in her psychiatric career. However, an assessment of the scientific value of the paper may be less favorable. It should be noted that the start of Moncrieff’s activity looking for a hole all over and making herself visible in the area of psychopharmacology, dates back to the mid-1990s when she published articles questioning the prophylactic efficacy of lithium [2, 3]. The articles were noticed whereas generally regarded as something anecdotal and…