I think misdiagnosis is one of the biggest factors. As far as I know there hasn't been a huge amount of research on the subject. But it's pretty much a given that a probable side effect of psych meds given to healthy people is going to be symptoms in line with mental illness. So you get people sad about something. Or even just feeling a sense of general malaise.  They're given a trial run on antidepressants. Then they end up with evidence of clinical depression because thanks to the meds they now do suffer from neurological issues. The fact that pushing up the dosage and years of therapy aren't changing things is then taken as even more evidence of how bad it is.  Again, I don't want to paint the entire field of mental health in a bad light. But it's hard not to be a bit cynical about it after you've seen enough people in therapy for years without ever once seeming to touch on the larger issues with their life. Hell, if anything I feel like it's not too uncommon for that to just enable those self destructive behaviors. I mean the amount of people in therapy has gone up tremendously in the past few decades. You'd think that'd equate to people being better able to cope with life. But instead the rise of people in therapy has gone right along with people's inability to take responsibility for eating habits, exercise, even basic responsibilities like cleanliness or the ability to tidy things up on occasion.  Just from what I saw in the psych classes I had, my suspicion is that one of the biggest factors is practitioners who're so blind to their own issues that they can't see it in their patients. I mean so many of them seemed like a human version of a dog that's never been allowed to go outside. Just unhealthy, out of shape, unchallenged and unable to understand why they feel so unfulfilled in life.