He's right, though. Yes, sometimes it's treatable. But we actually know very little about how the medications, or mental illness actually works. The chemical imbalance theory is a case where we can be justified in saying "it's just a theory" because there's really not that much evidence for it. Pharmaceutical companies ran with it because it helps sell the drugs.

For example, if depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, show me a quantitative model of a chemically balanced brain. We don't have one! We just know that certain neurotransmitters are implicated in the disease, but only a vague idea of how they interact or may actually cause it. For many people (such as myself) the medication simply doesn't work. In fact, it only made things worse.

The reason we should acknowledge this is because I really think blind acceptance in existing treatments gives people who don't have the illness an incorrect idea of how easy it is to treat, which results in more stigma for people who don't respond to treatment. Many people see things like medication as analagous to a diabetic taking insulin. I've had people scoff at me when I tell them I'm not on medication anymore, like I'm deliberately choosing not to get better. We don't gain anything by pretending that the condition is easier to treat than it really is.

I just want to clarify, I'm not anti drugs. I think people should at least give them a shot, because they do work for some people. But they don't always work for many others, and there's a huge gap there that needs to be addressed, and we can only do that if we're being honest about the efficacy of existing treatments.