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  • Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners

    What types of chemical imbalances occur in someone who is depressed?

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  • Richard Hill

    Counsellor, Psychotherapist

    Resident counsellor/psychotherapist at the Davis Health Centre with a solution focused approach; an international lecturer on the neuroscience and psychosocial genomics of human behaviour; author … View Profile

    When we talk about a chemical imbalance, is it a chemical imbalance or is the state of the chemical flow that is going on in the brain actually giving us information about how the person is functioning? Certainly there are particular types of chemicals that we look for. Usually those that are related to a positive mood for example serotonin which tends to help us calm down and particularly calm our fearful moods and emotions. Dopamine stimulates us with positive anticipation of good things to come and noradrenaline is very important because that gives us awareness and an awakeness. These chemicals, when they are too high or too low, can cause troubles and we have treatments that can intervene fairly rapidly to try and change that imbalance.

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