Hospital Diversion Services: A Manual on Assisting in the Development of a Respite/Diversion Service in Your Area

A manual on creating a peer-run hospital diversion respite house, based on the experience of Rose House and the work of PEOPLE, Inc. (Available through the National Empowerment Center.)

Soteria Alaska

Based on the research and principles of the Soteria project, and run by peers, Soteria Alaska is open to Alaska residents who want to make their own choices regarding medication and recovery.

Alternative To Meds Center

In Sedona, Arizona. Claims to have helped over 1000 people discontinue their psychiatric medication.

Second Story Respite House

A peer-run respite house in Santa Cruz, CA that sleeps six, and provides an opportunity to use relationships to move out of old roles and patterns.

Benzo Buddies

Benzo Buddies provides information and support to plan and execute a benzodiazepine withdrawal schedule.

The Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs – 2nd Edition

The Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, written by Will Hall and published by The Icarus Project and Freedom Center five years ago, is now available in a revised edition!

Xanax Withdrawal 

“Xanax Withdrawal” is by Dr. Stuart Shipko, a clinician in Pasadena, California who has focused to some degree on tapering people off psychiatric drugs and withdrawal syndrome. He’s one of the few doctors who will give a diagnosis of withdrawal syndrome for insurance purposes or in a lawsuit.

Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and their Families 

Dr. Peter Breggin’s new book, Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and Families, is meant for prescribers, therapists, patients and their families who want guidance in tapering off drugs.

Breggin.com → 

Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs

Will Hall’s Harm Reduction Guide, published by the Icarus Project and Freedom Center.

Video: Coming Off Medications: A Harm Reduction Approach

Video by Will Hall explaining some of the important things to consider when choosing to reduce medications.

Benzodiazepines: How They Work and How to Withdraw

Protocol for the Treatment of Benzodiazepine Withdrawal, written by Dr. C. Heather Ashton (“The Ashton Manual), published on Benzo.org

Coming Off Psychiatric Meds

Comingoff.com is a website that ”…aims to give you up to date information about psychiatric medication, how it functions and the withdrawal process. It is put together by people who have been prescribed medication and withdrawn from it, and clinicians who have been involved in supporting this process.”

Get Off Prescription Drugs

A program oriented toward helping people eliminate  dependency on and addiction to prescription drugs.

The Road Back

A widely used outpatient drug withdrawal program. The Road Back publishes the free book How to Get Off Psychoactive Drugs Safely.

EFT for Medication Withdrawal

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) involves tapping on stress-relieving points of the body while reciting affirmations to help manage withdrawal symptoms. This approach has been shown to help with many anxiety issues in addition to medication withdrawal, as it is being used here.

Holistic MD

Michael I. Gurevich, MD, is a New York psychiatrist who uses holistic approaches, including acupuncture, meditation, yoga, nutrition, EMDR and others to help patients resolve physical and emotional traumas.

The International Network of Integrative Mental Health (INIMH)

The International Network of Integrative Mental Health (INIMH) is a “A global organization to advance an integrative whole person approach to mental health through education, research, networking and advocacy.”

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction began at the U.Mass. Medical Center in 1979 and is now offered in over 200 medical centers around the world, as well as in countless private groups and classes, as a proven complement to medical treatment. Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, based on the MBSR program, works with the thoughts and feelings of depression and introduces skills for mastering them.

Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention

Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention, based on the work of Jon Kabatt-Zinn in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and Zindel Segal in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, is proven to help people withdraw from addictive substances and medications.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

The Sensotimotor Psychotherapy Institute works with trauma and dissociation using a mindfulness-based approach.

AntiDepAware

AntiDepAware promotes awareness of the dangers of antidepressants, in particular to the problem of antidepressants “being prescribed to those who are not depressed, to whom they are likely to do more harm than good.” The the site offers a link to inquest reports in England and Wales over the past 10 years, found mostly in the online archives of local newspapers.

DISCOVER AND RECOVER: Resources for Mental and Overall Wellness

Maintained by Duane Sherry, M.S., C.R.C.-R, Discover and Recover is a resource site that explores integrative medicine and treatment modalities for health conditions of all sorts, links to peer support networks, treatment centers, non-drug and recovery stories, faith, hope and inspiration.

Search Nursing Home Deficiency Reports

ProPublica offers an interactive tool that lets you search nursing home inspection reports for problems such as antipsychotic overprescribing.

Recovery Road

Recovery Road Wellness Project’s focus is on providing self-help and coping strategies to individuals currently experiencing benzo and antidepressant withdrawal and dependency, and on providing resources for moving on, reintegrating, and living fully functional lives.

Spiritual Recovery

Spiritual Recovery explores the “transformative experience that in this culture and setting would be identified as psychosis.”

Surviving Antidepressants

Surviving Antidepressants provides volunteer peer support for antidepressant withdrawal, while tapering off and after you quit.

Benzodiazepines Co-operation Not Confrontation (BCNC)

BCNC is a website aimed at helping people reduce from benzodiazepines. It includes links, book reviews, support groups, and other information.

CHRUSP Homepage 

“The Center for the Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (CHRUSP) provides strategic leadership in human rights advocacy, implementation and monitoring relevant to people experiencing madness, mental health problems, or trauma. In particular, CHRUSP works for full legal capacity for all, an end to forced drugging, forced electroshock and psychiatric incarceration, and for support that respects individual integrity and free will.”

Madness Radio

Madness Radio: Voices and Visions From Outside Mental Health is a regular FM show produced through WXOJ-LP in Northampton MA, and aired on KWMD in Anchorage Alaska, KBOO in Portland Oregon, and several other stations. Madness Radio is syndicated through the Pacifica community radio network and shows are picked up by stations around the country and internationally. The show is also vailable online and through iTunes. Hour long shows are produced monthly, with a special 30-minute version also available.

Med Free Or Working On It

A website for “survivors of medical abuse, through psychiatric drugs and other medications, and are looking for healthy ways to support our minds and bodies.”

No Longer Lonely

A dating service for people struggling with “mental illness.”

Paxil Progress

Paxil Progress is a forum for people engaged in withdrawal from Paxil. It also offers adverse drug reaction reporting, FDA Warnings, published withdrawal studies, and pregnancy warnings.

Samaritans

The Samaritans provides phone support to individuals going through crisis of all kinds.

Inquiry Into the ‘Schizophrenia’ Label

Inquiry into the ‘Schizophrenia’ Label is an independent inquiry into the usefulness of ‘schizophrenia’ as a diagnosis and medical condition, and the impact this diagnosis has on people’s lives.

Seroxat (Paxil) & SSRI User Group

The Seroxat & SSRI User Group was founded to support and advise patients experiencing problems with Seroxat (Paxil). This English-based group offers information, forums, book reviews and articles on withdrawal from SSRIs.

Zoloft (and other SSRIs) Lawsuit Center

The Zoloft Lawsuit Center offers information on the problems linked to a range of antidepressants, including Zoloft, Prozac, Paxil, and Lexapro, and the lawsuits associated with them.

Beyondmeds.com

Beyond Meds presents alternatives to psychiatry, along with information and support for withdrawal and recovery.

Withdrawal 101

Beyond Meds is a starting point for withdrawal information on the web.

Wellness Wordworks

Wellness Wordworks aims to link peer supporters who need jobs to people who want help.

Involuntary Transformation

Information about involuntary commitment, mental health advocacy, med-free recovery stories, and research that is of interest to people interested in psychiatry and its alternatives.

Psychrights

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) is a non-profit public interest law firm whose mission is to mount a strategic legal campaign against forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock in the United States. A treasure trove of scientific research and literature on medication and the legal aspects of forced medication.

Recovery Innovations

Recovery Innovations aims to “create opportunities and environments that empower people to recover, to succeed in accomplishing their goals, and to reconnect to themselves, others, and meaning and purpose in life.”

The Icarus Project

The Icarus Project is “a network of people living with and/or affected by experiences that are often diagnosed and labeled as psychiatric conditions. We believe that these experiences are mad gifts needing cultivation and care, rather than diseases or disorders.”

Saks Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy, and Ethics

The Saks Center fosters conversation and publishes research around legal and ethical issues of mental illness and mental health “so as to support all persons in living their fuller and expanded human potentials.”

Alliance for Human Research Protection

From the website: “The (AHRP) is a national network of lay people and professionals dedicated to advancing responsible and ethical medical research practice, to minimizing the risks associated with such endeavors and to ensuring that the human rights, dignity and welfare of human subjects are protected.”

International Guide to the World of Alternative Mental Health

Alternative Mental Health.com offers a directory of alternative mental health practitioners, a bookstore, support groups, email lists, and a monthly newsletter in support of reducing dependency on psychiatric medication. Alternative Mental Health.com looks for medical problems, allergies, toxic conditions, nutritional imbalances, poor diets, lack of exercise, or other treatable physical conditions that may underly “mental” disorders.

Benzo.org

U.K. based website focussing on benzodiazepine addiction, withdrawal & recovery.

American Association of Community Psychiatrists

The mission of the AACP is to “encourage, equip, and empower community and public psychiatrists to develop and implement policies and high-quality practices that promote individual, family and community resilience and recovery.”

Freedom Center

In Northampton, Massachusetts. An entirely peer-run support and advocacy community that has worked to create an alternative to the mental health system and has helped many people resist and avoid forced and coerced treatment.

The Hearing Voices Network

The Hearing Voices Network provides training and support to develop alternative approaches to coping with emotional distress.

Mindfreedom

Mindfreedom International is a leading organizer of activism in mental health.

Rufus May

Rufus May, Ph.d., also known as “The Doctor Who Hears Voices,” is a clinical psychologist who has also been forcibly hospitalized, medicated, and diagnosed as schizophrenic. He now speaks from his experiences in order to promote services that are patient-centered, collaborative, and do not rely on chemical imbalance theories of mental distress.

Science-Based Medicine

Science-Based Medicine provides evaluations of alternative medical treatments and products.