Do Antidepressants Cure or Create Abnormal Brain States?

This is the title of an article by Joanna Moncrieff and David Cohen that you can read here. This is the conclusion:

Conclusion
"Many patients are led to believe, by their physicians and by advertising, that antidepressant drugs will act on the biological cause of their depressed state by rectifying a “chemical imbalance ” [56 ]. On the contrary, our analysis indicates that there are no specific antidepressant drugs, that most of the short-term effects of antidepressants are shared by many other drugs, and that long-term drug treatment with antidepressants or any other drugs has not been shown to lead to long-term elevation of mood. We suggest that the term “antidepressant ” should be abandoned. We have proposed an alternative drug-centred model of drug action that is consistent with a demedicalised approach to depression." emphasys mine

Joanna Moncrieff is a senior lecturer in Psychiatry, University College London, London, United Kingdom. David Cohen is a professor at the School of Social Work, College of Health and Urban Affairs, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, United States of America.