[cheryl j]

Many psychiatrists are simply unaware of the mecanisms and functions of the drugs they're prescribing. There is simply no way to tell why a antipsychotic must be "good" for the mental illness. It's a bit of a human level experiment were the patient is a test subject and its behavior a measure for the effectiveness of the drug. As far as I know, there's no brain analysis a priori to a clinical diagnosis of mental illness, so its hard to quantify the value of the diagnosis in terms of neuroscientific evidences.

You're not entirely wrong, but you're not completely right either. I once heard a lecture by a psychiatrist/neurologist who said "Psychiatrists are the only doctors who rarely see the organ they are treating." He then showed several vastly different brain scans of patients with identical symptoms and said more than likely they were all treated clinically the same way. He said that when treating patients himself, he often felt like he was throwing darts with his eyes shut in dark room.

That said, there is a scientific or statistical basis for treating patients- ie, most people with these symptoms seem to improve if we give them this or that drug or therapy. It's not all snake oil, Big Pharma, or some sinister political plot to make outliers conform.

When I was a kid, I has scoliosis and they fitted me for a back brace to stop the progression and try to correct the curvature of my spine. I suspect that while actually accomplishing that goal to some extent, the brace I wore caused other skeletal problems. But they didn't even understand the cause of scoliosis, whether it was skeletal or neuromuscular, or if all forms of it were the same. ("Idiopathic" was the term they used.) My treatment was simply the best science and technology they had the time, and it was better than being a hunch back without a bell tower.

[smart (OP)]

That said, there is a scientific or statistical basis for treating patients- ie, most people with these symptoms seem to improve if we give them this or that drug or therapy. It's not all snake oil, Big Pharma, or some sinister political plot to make outliers conform.

The truth is, America is being overmedicated by psychiatrists. This makes psychiatry a highly profitable business.

Furthermore the chemicals used for theses synthetic drugs (antipsychotics) can have serious side effects including neurological disorders, seizures, and obesity. 

http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/03/overmedication-vulnerable-youth-psychiatric-medication-boon-pharmaceutical-industry/

[cheryl j]

The truth is, America is being overmedicated by psychiatrists. This makes psychiatry a highly profitable business.

Furthermore the chemicals used for theses synthetic drugs (antipsychotics) can have serious side effects including neurological disorders, seizures, and obesity. 

http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/03/overmedication-vulnerable-youth-psychiatric-medication-boon-pharmaceutical-industry/

But all drugs have side effect risks. The question is do the risks outweigh any benefits? What are the alternatives to medications, and is there evidence that it works better?

Actually, since drugs are cheaper than weekly cognitive therapy sessions, I'd think the more likely reason isn't psychiatrists trying make more money, but insurance companies trying to save more money and increase their own profits.