Slightly OT
Wot? Not again!
The medical pharmaceutical model, along with its highly dubious "chemical imbalance" and "there's something wrong with your brain"
Removes any sense of self agency from those who fall for the patter.
They are transformed from actors with a future that they are able to shape and to take ownership of, land into dependants of the medical professionals and the pharmaceutical companies.
The framing of an idea or of a situation, implicitly describes the options that are available for action. A big part of psychological therapies consists of reframing a situation or a belief in a form which allows self agency, and for a person to be able to take ownership of and responsibility for their situation and their way out of it.
Where previously the person perceived themselves as a victim, and could see no options, they are helped to see their part in the situation, and positive ways forward ( see Raymond Bergner; "victim to perpetrator" available as. PDF download).
The medical model provides a construction of the problem, which denies that there are other options available to the individual (either through ignorance or through malice).
There may be instances in which medicine is genuinely the only option, though non spring to mind. The very definition of mental disorder, is that a person experiences difficulties functioning in relationships and society.
This is separate from the actual physical illness or injury to the brain, in for example physical trauma, or MS, Alzheimer's, Huntingdon's, Parkinson's...
Even in the case of medical psychiatry's poster child, Schizophrenia. Psychological therapies, including CBT are beginning to show successes. Successes that the chemical imbalance model would suggest should not be possible. (Incidentally, there has been some very clever testing of the dopamine theory of schizophrenia. Can't remember the refs off hand, but it turns out that Schizophrenia is not due to dopamine, despite thorazine and the neuroleptics being active on the dopamine system).
In the case of epilepsy, it has been fairly well accepted since the time of the Gemini manned space rocket programme of the early 1960s, that neurofeedback allows people, to learn to resist seizure brain wave patterns.
The Gemini capsules exposed their crew to monomethyl hydrazine fuel used for fine manouvering. This caused them to experience seizures and hallucinations.
The Space agency sought help from neurofeedback researcher Barry Sterman. Sterman was working with cats, so, no placebo effects!
Sterman was able to demonstrate in controlled experiments that training the cats with neurofeedback allowed them to resist the seizures from exposure for toxic levels of hydrazine. His papers are now available as free downloads.
