Lex Fridman Podcast · Thursday, September 17, 2026
Historian Andrew Solomon states that modern psychiatry, while having made some progress in treating mental illness, primarily offers symptomatic treatments rather than cures. He notes that advances in psychopharmacology and psychotherapy since the 1950s have helped, but their effectiveness is limited, and interventions can sometimes create new problems, known as iatrogenic issues.
“So, psychiatry is a profession that tries to deal with an enormously complicated thing. The human mind, the human emotions, the human ability to attempt to understand the world. And in particular, obviously, focuses on people where our common sense approach to the world seems to break down.”
“What we have available to us are symptomatic treatments, not cures. We don't have a psychiatric penicillin for any of the conditions that we're going to be talking about.”
“And also to a parallel revolution in the psychotherapeutic realm, have created some advance for patients. And we should not minimize that.”