I'm afraid you're missing the point.
If mental illness comes from (say) bad patterns of thinking, then pharmaceuticals won't work as a treatment, except as a temporary and generalised mood-alterer. According to this narrative, giving a depressed person SSRIs is like giving painkillers to a patient with a broken leg; worthwhile as a temporary measure, but unimportant compared to the crucial task of setting the bone, which only trained therapy can do. Advocates of this point of view typically cite the unimpressive performance of certain kinds of pharmaceutical therapies when compared to placebo.
If mental illness comes from (say) faulty synaptic function, then therapy won't work as a treatment, except as a placebo. According to this narrative, giving a depressed person CBT is like a nurse providing reassurance to a patient with a broken leg; worthwhile, but unimportant compared to the crucial task of setting the bone, which only biochemical intervention can do. Advocates of this point of view typically cite the impressive performance of pharmaceutical regimens in dealing with certain mental illnesses, the poor performance of various talking therapies compared to "placebo therapy"+, and the historical lack of interest of talking therapies in empirical validation.
Now I call these "narratives" because they are deliberate oversimplifications; riparianx is right that it may well be that some mental illnesses are "mind" and some are "brain," and some a bit of both. Nevertheless they express very real ways of thinking about the problem. In 1940 the medical consensus was that the first narrative was broadly true. By 1990, the medical consensus was closer to the second.
Coming from a reductionist "mind is brain" viewpoint, therapy actually does help. This is pretty well documented in the fact that 73% of patients who go through it say it helped in the long run. (statistic from my psych 101 textbook) Talking to a therapist may not increase your serotonin levels, but it does help teach you new mental "patterns" and ways to cope with the results. Saying the brain doesn't follow patterns is, well, wrong. The more you have a thought, the more the thought comes to you. If a chemical imbalance puts you in a m...
For a site extremely focused on fixing bad thinking patterns, I've noticed a bizarre lack of discussion here. Considering the high correlation between intelligence and mental illness, you'd think it would be a bigger topic.
I personally suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder and a very tame panic disorder. Most of this is focused on financial and academic things, but I will also get panicky about social interaction, responsibilities, and things that happened in the past that seriously shouldn't bother me. I have an almost amusing response to anxiety that is basically my brain panicking and telling me to go hide under my desk.
I know lukeprog and Alicorn managed to fight off a good deal of their issues in this area and wrote up how, but I don't think enough has been done. They mostly dealt with depression. What about rational schizophrenics and phobics and bipolar people? It's difficult to find anxiety advice that goes beyond "do yoga while watching the sunrise!" Pop psych isn't very helpful. I think LessWrong could be. What's mental illness but a wrongness in the head?
Mental illness seems to be worse to intelligent people than your typical biases, honestly. Hiding under my desk is even less useful than, say, appealing to authority during an argument. At least the latter has the potential to be useful. I know it's limiting me, and starting cycles of avoidance, and so much more. And my mental illness isn't even that bad! Trying to be rational and successful when schizophrenic sounds like a Sisyphusian nightmare.
I'm not fighting my difficulties nearly well enough to feel qualified to author my own posts. Hearing from people who are managing is more likely to help. If nothing else, maybe a Rational Support Group would be a lot of fun.