Taking psychiatric medications long-term is like playing Russian roulette. It’s a harsh reality, but one that most patients are never informed about. The truth is, these medications can substantially worsen your life over time.
When I was a psychiatric trainee, I was told these drugs were safe and effective. I assumed that meant long-term safety and effectiveness as well—after all, I watched my professors and colleagues prescribe them to patients for decades.
They were presented as helpful tools but with modest effects. Sometimes they worked, and sometimes the patient’s “underlying mental illness” would overpower the drugs. In those cases, we were taught to increase the dose, add more medications, and, if that didn’t work, escalate to ketamine, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), or even electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The conditions we treated seemed mysterious—constantly changing, worsening, and leaving patients increasingly disabled.
That was the paradigm I was trained in.
But over time, I realized that many of these so-called “treatment-resistant” conditions weren’t underlying illnesses—they were caused by the drugs themselves.
This idea may not be new to the Mad in America community. After all, Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic laid out the case that psychiatric medications often make people worse over time. But I want to offer a different perspective—one from someone who exclusively treats patients suffering from severe drug side effects and helps them safely taper off these medications.
Let me share how I went from believing these drugs were safe to realizing that taking them long-term is gambling with your brain’s future.
The Devastation of Protracted Withdrawal
In 2017, I authored an article highlighting the hundreds of thousands of people reporting severe withdrawal side effects on forums like BenzoBuddies and Surviving Antidepressants. These were people who, upon stopping their medications—either through a planned taper or by abruptly deciding they didn’t want to take them anymore—suffered devastating consequences.
What most people don’t understand about those harmed by psychiatric drug withdrawal is that they’ve sustained brain damage—also known as protracted withdrawal. The defining feature of brain damage is that it doesn’t resolve, even if the person reinstates the drug.
This is what makes protracted withdrawal so devastating. Many patients assume that if they develop severe symptoms after stopping a medication, they can simply restart it and their suffering will disappear. But that’s not the case. The damage has already been done, and reinstatement doesn’t always reverse it.
Neurotoxicity From Psychiatric Drugs—Even Without Withdrawal
After I became known in this community as a doctor who recognized this condition, patients started booking appointments at my clinic for help.
Initially, I assumed these toxic reactions only occurred in people who were rapidly withdrawn from medications. But soon, I noticed something alarming:
Many patients were developing the same constellation of symptoms seen in protracted withdrawal—except they hadn’t even started tapering yet.
This was especially common among benzodiazepine users. I’ve now treated multiple women who were prescribed benzodiazepines for perimenopausal insomnia—only to develop full-blown neurotoxicity after 6–12 months of use. These patients never tried to taper; the drugs alone caused severe, enduring neurological damage.
Since that time, I’ve been investigating long-term neurotoxicity from psychiatric drugs taken as prescribed. And what I’ve found is deeply troubling.
Toxicity That Psychiatry Refuses to Acknowledge
Mainstream psychiatry acknowledges that antipsychotics can cause neurotoxicity—tardive dyskinesia is a well-documented condition. But the field refuses to extend that acknowledgment to other psychiatric drugs.
Yet, in my experience, long-term antidepressant use can cause its own form of neurotoxicity, leading to:
- Apathy
- Dissociation
- Chronic low energy
- Agitation
This condition is recognized in the medical literature as tardive dysphoria. But despite its existence in research, I was never taught about it in my psychiatric training. I’ve never heard it mentioned at a conference.
What happens to these patients? Instead of recognizing their condition as antidepressant-induced neurotoxicity, they get diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression. This leads to:
- Higher doses of medication
- More drug combinations
- Escalation to ketamine, TMS, or ECT
- In some cases, being placed on heavy antipsychotics like clozapine
All because mainstream psychiatry refuses to acknowledge that these patients aren’t treatment-resistant—they’re suffering from brain damage caused by the drugs themselves.
Unfortunately, this is how many patients show up at my clinic—suffering immensely, on ungodly cocktails of psychiatric medications that are making them worse.
Reframing the Problem: From “Treatment-Resistant” to Drug-Induced Toxicity
If we correctly identify these cases as drug toxicity, the treatment approach changes completely. Instead of piling on more medications, these patients need:
- A slow, careful taper off the offending drug
- Nervous system support for healing
- A recognition that additional psychiatric medications often make them worse
A damaged brain does not respond predictably to more drugs. That’s why adding medications in these cases typically exacerbates symptoms rather than alleviating them.
How Widespread Is Psychiatric Drug-Induced Brain Damage?
The medical community is comfortable acknowledging persistent brain injury from recreational drugs, yet remains silent when it comes to pharmaceuticals.
We already acknowledge that:
- LSD can cause hallucinogen-persisting perception disorder (HPPD), a form of lasting brain damage.
- High-potency cannabis can cause neurotoxicity and cognitive impairment, especially in young people—and it can look like schizophrenia.
- Methamphetamine use leads to clear brain changes, often mimicking schizophrenia.
- Chronic alcohol use can cause Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, a severe neurological disorder.
Yet, when it comes to pharmaceutical drugs, we assume they are somehow “cleaner” simply because they’re prescribed. But to your brain, a drug is a drug. And psychiatric medications—especially when used long-term—can have profoundly neurotoxic effects.
Why This Conversation Is Avoided
This issue is almost never discussed in mainstream psychiatry because:
- It’s a direct threat to the pharmaceutical industry. If it became widely known that these drugs can cause irreversible neurological damage, prescriptions would plummet.
- It’s uncomfortable for doctors to acknowledge. Imagine telling a patient:
“If you take this medication long-term, there’s a small but real chance it could make you worse and cause lasting neurological damage that may never go away.” - It disrupts the 15-minute medication-management model. If doctors admitted these risks, prescribing in quick visits would become far more complicated.
Why Patients Deserve the Truth
We now have 17% of the U.S. population on psychiatric medications—millions of whom may be at risk for drug-induced neurotoxicity. Many of these individuals, upon failing medication after medication, will be labeled “treatment-resistant” and given even more drugs that will likely worsen their condition.
There is no way to predict how long a psychiatric medication will work before it turns on you. That’s why taking these drugs long-term is like playing Russian roulette with your brain.
We need to start informing patients about these risks—before they become another needless casualty in the growing crisis of psychiatric drug-induced harm.
Many thanks to you, Dr. Witt-Doerring, for choosing to meaningfully grapple with the reality of life-altering neurological damage from psychoactive pharmaceuticals.
There’s an urgent need for a decisive end to psychiatry’s systemically self-imposed silence regarding what I believe amounts to wide-scale neurological poisoning.
I especially appreciate your comprehensive outline of what is currently a seriously misunderstood matter.
I hope your integrity and compassion inspires other physicians to follow your lead as the world needs more doctors like you.
Report comment
Thanks for this.
Honestly?!? I appreciate your work but I think the mental health industry is becoming more draconian more dehumanizing and more reliant on labels and psychiatric drugs.
More states have laws allowing for court ordered outpatient drugging. Instead of encouraging doctors to screen for tardive dyskinesia the tv tells people to stay on the offending drugs and take a pill for the TD, as well. People who have been damaged by years of antidepressants are told they need an additional pill perhaps mirapex or some Ritalin.
Your work is valuable and I am grateful. I just don’t think the overall outlook is good. At all.
Report comment
“Taking psychiatric medications long-term is like playing Russian roulette.” I was singing “Russian roulette is not the same without a gun,” in relation to psychiatry’s neurotoxins, almost two decade ago.
Great blog, Dr. Witt-Doerring. Thank you for your truth telling, and working to get innocent people off of the psychiatric neurotoxins.
Report comment
What is written in the article is true.. I think… These effects (especially brain damage) can be not only long-term, but (sometimes) also short-term.. It may be valid for those with a weak constitution. We can say the same for those with a strong constitution. (However, this will not be valid for everyone.)
But… Probably, I guess… All psychiatric drugs cause ‘chemically induced brain damage’. And probably cause ‘permanent mental illness’ related to this brain damage.
Because.. All psychiatric drugs are produced to directly target the brain (brain chemistry). (There is no escape and no salvation.) They are designed to change brain chemistry. They think that mental illnesses are caused by a ‘chemical imbalance’ in the brain. And they assume that by changing brain chemistry, they will cure so-called ‘mental illnesses’. So.. They produce these poisonous psychiatric drugs, dreaming that they will fix something that does not exist in the brain (mental illness).
However.. On the contrary, these psychiatric drugs do not cure mental illnesses. It creates them (mental illnesses). It causes natural psychological problems to become permanent. Presumably, it appears to do so through ‘chemically induced brain damage’.
———-
Things I have learned and predicted from my personal research… I estimate that millions of people worldwide who take psychiatric medications have been subjected to some form of ‘chemical lobotomy’ (in their own homes). ‘Chemical lobotomy’ seems to be taking place quietly in millions of homes. But nobody realizes this. (Most likely.. Probably.. Psychiatry and pharmaceutical companies are aware of this fact. They know.)
Chemical lobotomy is the chemical version of frontal lobotomy. It causes ‘permanent brain damage’. It probably causes permanent mental illnesses related to this. (Natural psychological problems becoming permanent..) Psychiatric drug-induced ‘chemical permanent brain damage’ is probably a condition that occurs over long periods of time (after using psychiatric drugs for months and/or years). However, the symptoms of this ‘chemical brain damage’ also appear to begin after psychiatric drugs are first used.
Psychiatric medications contain toxic substances that are very poisonous to the brain (brain chemistry). (Therefore.. No psychiatric drug is safe. Anyone who says ‘it is safe’ is a liar.) Because psychiatric medications are manufactured to directly target the brain (brain chemistry), they begin to flood the brain chemistry with these poisonous toxic chemicals. And it invades the brain chemistry and changes it in a negative way and disrupts it; (it starts to disrupt the brain chemistry.) We can say that this situation is actually the most important determinant of chemical-induced brain damage. It could also be a beginning. Probably… If chemical attacks from psychiatric drugs continue, this ‘chemical brain damage’ will become permanent.
Actually probably.. Mental and physical problems caused by psychiatric medications in the short or long term may be an indication that chemical brain damage is beginning to occur. Here are this the symptoms… A type of chemical lobotomy.. Probably.. I estimate that millions of people around the world who use psychiatric medications may have been subjected to some form of chemical lobotomy in this way.
Chemically induced brain damage (chemical lobotomy) cannot be detected by some medical testing tools (such as MRI, X-ray, ultrasound, blood, DNA, etc.). If this chemical brain damage has become physically evident, it can be detected with medical testing tools.
However, still.. Undetected chemical brain damage may be detected or predicted by the resulting mental and physical health problems. It is an issue that honest psychiatrists, other doctors, researchers, journalists, writers, politicians and other independent researchers should focus on.
——-
For decades, the psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries have argued that mental illnesses are caused by “chemical imbalances in the brain.” They (comfortably) prescribed psychiatric medications with this theory. When did psychiatric drugs start to cause damage (brain damage) to people’s healthy brains…. Since then, they have begun to reject the ‘chemical imbalance in the brain’ theory they advocated… So.. They started to deny it. They started to see the theory of ‘chemical imbalance’ in the brain as nonsense.
Psychiatric drugs were causing serious damage to people’s healthy brains. (So.. Generally in the long term..) It was causing damage (brain damage) to healthy brains. It made natural psychological problems permanent. For this reason, they began to deny this theory. In addition, psychiatric drugs were causing serious damage to the human body. They were also causing various diseases and deaths.
The psychiatry and pharmaceutical industries are well aware of all the harm that psychiatric drugs cause to people. But they are still in denial (just as they deny the chemical imbalance in the brain). Because… They know very well what will happen to them. They know that they could be faced with “billions of dollars in compensation lawsuits” filed by millions of people. CONFESSING these facts means the end of the psychiatry and pharmaceutical industries.
——
In my opinion.. What needs to be done.. The psychiatry sector should be removed from medical schools. The psychiatry sector is not a ‘medical field’. How can an industry that harms people be considered a ‘field of medicine’? The psychiatry industry is an industry that makes money by damaging people’s healthy brains (brain damage). The fact that psychiatry is within the medical community is a SHAMEFUL situation for the medical community. Psychiatry has likely caused iatrogenic harm to millions of people worldwide. And it caused their deaths. For psychiatry to remain in the medical community means being a party to these crimes against humanity (committed by psychiatry). So are the states (administrations)…
In my opinion.. The mental health sector should be rescued from the psychiatry (and pharmaceutical) sectors. If the mental health sector is saved, the lives of millions of people around the world who use these toxic psychiatric drugs will also be saved.
The mental health paradigm must change. Ministries of mind and soul health should be established. Psychiatrists and psychologists should practice as ‘mind and soul health physicians’. Psychiatric drugs should be banned. Drug-free treatment methods should be introduced. (Examples such as the Norwegian example and the Storia houses should be increased..) And so many other mental health changes I can’t even think of.. Experts on the subject should evaluate it.
———–
NOTE: The interpretive thoughts that I constantly emphasize on the ‘Mad in America’ site and other pages are generally the same. Because I know these things. I am aware. I know from my research.
And I know from my sister.. Because she has been taking psychiatric medication since childhood, she has chemical brain damage that we cannot identify (detect). This has caused his psychological problems to become permanent. I did not know the reason for these before. I didn’t know that psychiatric medications could cause this. I started to learn when I did some research. I realized that the real reason was psychiatric drugs.
Actually, psychiatric drugs were not the only reason. The corrupt health systems of the states were also responsible for this. Especially when the mental health system is corrupt… The psychiatry and pharmaceutical industries make billions of dollars in revenue from the dysfunction of the mental health industry. It always happens to people who use psychiatric drugs. Their brains get damaged. They get various diseases and they die.
States do not provide other alternatives to people with psychological problems. It pushes people into the trap of the psychiatry and pharmaceutical industry. For this reason, people turn to psychiatrists out of desperation. And they are forced to take toxic psychiatric medications that damage their healthy brains. And governments probably know these facts.
And psychiatrists know this too.. Therefore, morally, I will never forgive psychiatrists.. (It is especially impossible to forgive psychiatrists who prescribe psychiatric drugs even though they know their harm (even still).)
(Of course.. Except honest psychiatrists.. Psychiatrists who reveal the harms of psychiatric drugs.. Psychiatrists who do not prescribe psychiatric drugs to their patients because they know the harm they can do.) I will not morally forgive the states that allow this. And their rotten health systems..
I hope that the number of honest psychiatrists, other doctors, journalists, writers, politicians and other independent researchers will increase around the world so that the winds of change will begin to blow in these rotten mental health systems.. I hope so…
Best wishes.. 🙂 Y.E. (Researcher blog writer (blogger))
Report comment
I appreciate your comment. Very affirming. The truth becomes evident through lived experience, should you not die first. I’m too old for these meds. I know they are harming me and giving me diseases I never signed up for. And in these decades of psych drug usage I was never told I could die earlier or warned about heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, with movement disorders etc. Neither did psychiatrists catch on that I am autistic. Senior years now and shaking my head. Happy for truth tellers!
Report comment
“I’m too old for these meds.”
That very thought occurred to me, also. And now I am even older.
What our bodies once could tolerate, are not tolerated well with age. Even lunch, puts me down for a nap!
I’m beginning to suspect that this whole notion of a “pill for every ill” popularized by mass advertising, beginning in the 90’s, is running its natural course. It’s now 30 years later, and coupled with social media (everybody can share their experiences) – the sheer quantity of people harmed is being heard.
I’m not denying that some people are helped. But for 30 years and counting, untold numbers of people have been harmed. What I’m suggesting is that perhaps “it’s not good for people” to be ingesting products, produced in manufacturing facilities, that have mostly unknown effects – particularly when ingested in combinations.
I’m too old for this. My brain is not a chemistry set for you to experiment on, while proclaiming “you know”. You don’t know. No one can know what it is like to walk in another’s shoes. It’s an utter waste, that my trust was squandered. But these are the times we live in.
I’ll add cataracts to the list of ailments, resulting from – I’m not convinced anyone knows. It is listed as a side effect on many pharmaceuticals, but it is also a caricature of advancing years.
Report comment
Thank you Dr Josef, for me it was a ticking time bomb.
I have been tapering P@r0xetine for 5 years, after my first dose in 1999. Not long after this dose, I was put on S3r0qu3l. I hope one day I will be able to come off these drugs.
Last year I had a mild stroke, severe seizure and heart attack, in that order. My temporal lobe seems to be damaged. Not sure if it’s related to tapering after long term use?
Now I’m L3vetiracetam, am anti-seizure drug and am noticing the same patterns as psychotropics. Online peer-support-groups, seem to be growing and members having similar experiences as those of psych drug groups, tolerance, increased doses, while still getting seizures. Severe adverse effects, are common as well. If you know any neurologists who would be interested in having a look at both patterns of psych and anti-seizure use patterns, it would be great.
Report comment
Tardive akathisia is major outcome of any long term drugs taking. Especially polypharmacy. Constant dysphoria, brutal compulsions based on impossibility of getting fulfilled by any action, agitation, reduced mind capacity, not able to concentrate, not able to engage in anything, irritability, horrendous insomnia, absolute torturous restlessness. There are many faces of this torture. Similar to its cousin Tardive Dyskinesia the damage from drugs accumulate and the longer someone use the drug the longer it gonna persist or become permanent.
Yet, it is like forbidden word, no one talks about it. They diagnose treatment resistant or psychotic depression ( dysphoria and agitation aspect ), OCD ( they mistake mental akathisia lack of fulfilment compulsions with anxiety-like OCD compulsions. Walking in physical akathisia is also compulsion ), ADHD ( mistake inability to engage in akathisia with ADHD engagement switching ) and drug it to the hell. Yeah, drugs may cover up problem. The client becomes convinced it is mental disorder because drugs work. But this is temporary solution, drugs do small accumulating damage each pill and the hell is waiting for them.
I am frequent observer of reddit r/akathisia and hell. Even there are still some people who believe in psychiatric drugs after experiencing akathisia. It is insane how people are misguided
Report comment
In the current streaming show The Pitt lack of housing and street healthcare are given a nod to long term psyotrophic injection as a stand slinger maintenance cure.
It would be do so helpful to get screenwriters to create better and more realistic scenarios. The used to the show I remember is St . Elsewhere with at least some scenarios onnnegatuve effects of psychotropics.
It is a drama that is realistic in many other ways and shows the poor state of healthcare in our country but needs some type of intervention or voices that could explain emotional crisis better and at this point why not write a more nuanced utopian future program and create a str trek for how to handle human trauma crisis and really create narratives of those othered in our society. The current shows a bit but a more utopian show centered in the future more of a this is what we could do aka Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry’s use of the Wagon Train story episodic narrative to we could be dealing with these events this way and thus out of the box way instead of how we deal with things in the present time.
Report comment
Noah Wylie who I like wrote the last episode and realistic concerns about an ER more bad with good coming out of people trying to do good in a very bad environment. The story arch for the unbounded man in continual crisis mode well some humanity at end but solved with an injection and back to the streets.
I would suggest someone or some group contacting him and say well we noticed this and what can we do do get a more accurate viewpoint across fir every group involved in who trauma is handled in our broken healthcare system.
I am sure he is well aware of how ER ended and how is elite doc created a multi framework health service system for the unhoused and others.
I also would suggest getting rid of the term mental health because it as in all the continums of various forms of human trauma engage with all and every entire human body group. Skin is the largest organ but receives scant attention. After the pandemic of 2928-1919 the word parlor was purposefully changed to living room because of the bone wakes abd laying out of bodies in the parlor. It can be donee but I haven’t yet found a good word or phrase for this yet. Maybe others.
And also the make up of ED and ER more for physical trauma and no real in place care for humans in crisis and to be completely blunt anyone who goes into a trauma center fir care and those working especially after COVID and in the now of now all are dealing with the affects of active and prolonged and secondary and tertiary trauma. All of us.
The sooner a replacement framework is created and put in place the better. Private Equity and the concept of medical care as profit just has created a titsasumi, gale, riptide of mangled healthcare. At times no better than old institutions in other times of all kinds.
Report comment
Thank you for writing this Josef. You are a good man.
aye Peter
Scotland
Report comment
The idea that such a wide range of medications worsen the very wide range of diagnoses is not explained or given mechanistic/chemical reason of effect here in this article. Is the author claiming that all forms of mental illness are different types of brain damage based on the notion that brain damage worsens mental illnesses? Is his paradoxical claim that medication worsens what it treats defended by his assertion that it only affects a small percentage of patients? As far as I’ve read as a layman, using medication such as an antipsychotic–under the supervision of a competent medical doctor–improves the brain’s recovery from mania or at least provides resilience from real mental decline caused by it. I wouldn’t hazard to make a similar claim about other types of medication, as generalizing the similarities of illnesses and their treatment wouldn’t be appropriate to reason or conclude. This article provides no consideration to how appropriate medication provides a net gain in outcome to a patient’s health rather than letting the patient’s illness go untreated. I feel this author’s article feeds into society’s continued pervasive stigmatism of mental health. This article may even provide such fodder for JFK Jr as the new US Secretary of Health and Human Services in his incompetent and ignorant campaign to “cure” Americans by revoking vaccines and psychoactive medication.
Report comment
Revelatory, sensical, meaningful. I hope this is a call for more exposure in mainstream press. We need alternatives to help people and their families manage to live in the wake of this harm.
Report comment
‘twould be helpful if poster elaborated on “nervous system support for healing”- practical not utopian ideas, please. Example: STD’s used to be treated with mercury and arsenic, not because doctors were evil, but because that was all they knew at that time. If the only tool you are given to crack an egg is a sledge hammer, how do you go about ut?
Report comment
Thank you Dr. Witt-Doerring for your article about the harms from psychiatric medication. The only statement I disagree with is, “If you take this medication long-term, there’s a small but real chance it could make you worse and cause lasting neurological damage that may never go away.” I don’t think the chance is small. According to Dr. Peter Breggin, these drugs cause real systemic damage. It may not be noticeable to the patient but they permanently alter the neurological functions. Thanks again for raising awareness about the dangers of psychiatric medications. If you could also write about the dangers of ADHD medication, it would benefit the public because these medications are given to young children and increasingly to adults to treat ‘adult’ ADHD. MAD has published articles about how ADHD medications alter the developing brain.
Report comment
Psychiatry is a fraudulent pseudoscience, a drugs racket, and a social control mechanism. It’s 21st century phrenology with potent neuro-toxins. Psychiatry has done, and continues to do, FAR MORE HARM than good. So-called “mental illnesses” are exactly as “real” as presents from Santa Claus, but NOT more real. The DSM is a catalog of billing codes. Everything in it was either invented or created, nothing in it was discovered.
But yes, “TDS”, or “Trump derangement Syndrome” will be in the DSM-6. That’s what I think, anyway….
Witt-Doerring seems to be passing out life jackets on the Titanic of psychiatry, so, maybe a FEW folks MIGHT be saved….maybe. But it’s a fatally cold ocean….
Report comment
While Dr. Josef Says a lot of of the right things, And is very smart, Unfortunately, he did not structure his taper clinic practice in order to actually be safe for patients experiencing the very neurotoxicity and withdrawal traumas that he is writing about. I entered treatment with him in 2023, And was impressed. I started tapering. Then only a couple of months later, he sent me a contract that he demanded that I Sign. It had much much higher prices than I initially started at. It was very destabilizing and very stressful. Since it had taken me several years to find him, I was very fearful that I would not be able to find any other psychiatrist who would have the level of insight that he has.
I had a lot of conflict with my husband, with my family, trying to get enough money to afford Dr. Josef’s clinic. After several months of my trying to modify the contract to be less predatory, He told me “don’t worry about it. We’ll just keep going as we were.”
Several more months went by. I’m continuing to taper, and even though I am doing it in the way, he advised, I was having withdrawal, and I don’t blame him for that. I’m just stating that when one is tapering, one is constantly under a lot of stress and has an unbalanced nervous system.
Several months later, his office sent me a third contract, With even more abusive and predatory terms and pricing than the previous one. The contract included clauses that demanded that the patient taper at a certain speed, That you could not pause for as long as you needed to. It was demanding a very high annual payment, But you would only get to talk to Dr. Josef once every 90 days. While his other staff of tapering coaches are quite good, you still could only speak to them in a group like once a month.
I was so distressed by this third contract, that I developed extraordinary pain in my joints, my nervous system went haywire, I started getting allergies to things that I never had allergies to before.
I told him I found this contract and his behavior as a business person Totally unacceptable. I told him that one of the key things that someone working in mental health should have learned is that you have to create a stable enough environment so that people can try to do the very difficult work there is to be done. You have to be trustworthy and ethical.
I felt that he was neither.
He sent me an email saying “I’m so sorry, I cannot continue to treat you”.
I think Dr. Josef is aware of our vulnerability in this population, And I felt that his business behavior was very predatory and felt like extortion.
I felt that in his YouTube channel and in blogs like these, he is taking advantage of him being smart and having important insights to reel vulnerable patients into his practice. I really, really hope that other patients of his have not had the very damaging experience that I did.
Report comment
Thank you for sharing your experience Jessica and I’m so sorry to hear you had such an awful experience with Dr. Josef. Dr. Mark Horowitz co-authored a deprescribing book which details how to safely taper off of psychiatric meds. He has given many interviews; search his name on YouTube. Here is the link to his website which has more information. https://markhorowitz.org/
Take care and sending healing prayers as you continue to safely taper.
Report comment
K.D,
Dr Mark Horowitz is a psychiatric empathiser. Through titling his work a ‘deprescribing’ guide, he fails to discuss how noxious and unnecessary these drugs are and acquiesces to the psychiatric paradigm. At no point in his publication does he explain the quasi-science behind diagnoses. Journal articles authored by him and displayed publicly on his website refer to ‘schizophrenia’, ‘depression’, ‘severe mental illness’, and other fictional character assassination terms.
I recommend Dr Peter Breggin’s 2012 book: “Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients, and Their Families”. Breggin truly understands the depravity of the ‘profession’.
Report comment
I have personally communicated with Dr. Horowitz and watched several of his video interviews in which he calls out the psychiatry profession for prescribing psychiatric medications that cause harm. He co-authored this paper with Dr. Joanna Moncrieff et al. which debunks the low serotonin theory of depression. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0
The purpose of Horowitz’s book was not to lambaste the psychiatric industry and psychiatric medications. That would duplicate the brilliant books authored by Robert Whitaker, whose books include Anatomy of an Epidemic, Psychiatry Under the Influence and Mad In America as well as the Peter Breggin’s book which you mentioned.
I have also watched numerous Dr. Peter Breggin interviews and I belong to a private discussion group where Peter and Ginger Breggin are also members. While Breggin’s Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal book explains the issues within the psychiatric industry and the harms inflicted by the drugs, it is lacking on how to specifically withdraw from various medications using hyperbolic vs. linear tapering. Horowitz’s and Taylor’s deprescribing book is a step-by-step guide on hyperbolic tapering to safely withdraw from specific medications.
Report comment
Dear K.D,
I, too, have personally communicated with Horowitz, viewed his website and videos, and read many of his articles, including his co-authored paper regarding the serotonin theory that has been disproven for decades (Greenburg, G., Burstow, B., Szasz, T. et al). I also own and have read his co-authored book on ‘deprescribing’. I am familiar with Breggin’s work, but do not belong to the private discussion group, unlike yourself. What was your purpose in sharing this information?
I agree that Horowitz and Taylor’s work, “The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines” (2024) does provide a superior tapering guide to withdrawing from psychiatric drugs compared to Breggin’s 2012 book: “Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients, and Their Families”. In my opinion, Breggin’s work is superior because it is written for everyone and elucidates the corruption of psychiatry.
I comprehend that the intention of Horowitz and Taylor’s work was “not to lambaste the psychiatric industry and psychiatric medications”. However, contributing to the collective academic knowledge that reinforces an argument against recklessly prescribed psychiatric neurotoxins and fictional diagnosing is crucial- not a form of duplication as you asserted. I continue to contend that because the authors intentionally chose to ignore this fundamental debate, they are psychiatric empathisers.
Taylor and Horowitz also failed to consider that their work was produced exclusively for ‘professionals’. The majority of ‘professionals’ promote the use of neurotoxins for mythical disorders and obey the psychiatric paradigm. Why would these people, the bulk of those who could not be trusted to care for a goldfish, want to withdraw their ‘patients’ from drugs if they believe that they are ‘mentally ill’ and require ‘medicine’ for their ‘permanent condition’?
Power and knowledge need to be given to the people. Especially those who have been abused, or are unaware that they are being harmed by psychiatric dogma. By depriving psychiatric consumers and ‘professionals’ of imperative knowledge, Taylor and Horowitz’s work further robs autonomy from psychiatric survivors by ensuring that ‘professionals’ continue to dominate the lives of consumers through using false paradigms.
Out of curiosity, are you a psychiatric survivor? Have you ever been poly-drugged for decades, taken from your home, imprisoned, assaulted and drugged at various psychiatric wards for being raped or asking for help, forced to withdraw from your recklessly prescribed psychiatric neurotoxins independently because your psychiatrist and doctor thought that your decades of sexual abuse, akathisia and chronic brain impairment was ‘mental illness’, that you were too “fragile” to withdraw, and did not know the correct method? I have. The marginalised lived experience of survivors is at the crux of the argument. They are the people who know what should have been available during their experience of medical negligence and should be consulted when producing withdrawal guidelines for the people who will actually use them.
What is required is an uncomplicated self-help guide for people that illustrates the fallacies of diagnoses in the DSM V and the ICD, concedes that psychiatric drugs are neurotoxic, damage the central nervous system, cause suicide and result in chronic brain impairment (falsely named protracted withdrawal syndrome), provides a variety of tapering mechanisms for every prescribed psychiatric drug, describes and offers solutions to withdrawal symptoms, and shares the lived experience of those who have successfully and unsuccessfully withdrawn from a variety of these drugs. Essentially, a free, rudimentary online and hard-copy psychiatric drug withdrawal guide available in all languages. Perhaps, a mobile phone application?
What are your thoughts?
Kind regards,
Cat
Report comment
Yes, thank you for sharing your experience, Jessica. And it’s sad to hear, albeit sadly not that surprising.
Report comment
I guess no one knows the best way of coming off any neurotoxin, unless it is immediately, please, as would be my attitude to lead or mercury, cadmium or aluminium, arsenic or strychnine,
And that was my own approach, after 82 days of forced drugging, to coming off a gram of quetiapine fumarate and 1.2 gram of sodium valproate (or was that vice-versa?) and, months before that, to coming off 11 years of 800 mg lithium carbonate – and NO regrets.
But, whatever the best way/s, I strongly suspect that the very worst way to come off is expecting a lot of residual, lasting or permanent brain or mind or emotional or psychic damage – and spending a lot more money than one needs to or can afford to anyone who tells you so.
It’s beginning to be funny now, almost 16 years on, to realize that I was so very deeply demented by those poisons that I really did not fully realize just how stupid I had become.
As they used to say at College:
“’If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you….’
(from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if— )
….then, clearly, you do not appreciate the gravity of the situation!”
I suspect that much of the suffering endured by folks coming off psychotropics/neurotoxins is evidence of nocebo effect and quite avoidable but, for obvious, commercial reasons, I believe that any good science on this as, also, on how best to come off, in general, remains conspicuously absent for now.
Yet it is still striking that Josef does not offer us so much as a single supporting scientific reference, or any practical tip for dealing with withdrawal symptoms.
“Trust me: I’m a doctor!”?
A musician friend who had fully (and foolishly, I say) embraced his “bipolar” diagnosis solemnly explained to me that when he was “manic” or “hypomanic,” he enjoyed his music “like, too much!”
I do not believe anyone can possibly enjoy music too much, but I do believe that music, like art of any kind, may prove tremendously helpful in dealing with withdrawal.
I was extraordinarily fortunate to have had endless unconditional love, as well as a most exceptionally wonderful, nutrient-dense diet lavished on me following my release from hospital and from that forcible drugging.
Hope/faith/love cannot possibly be overestimated in their power to nourish and to heal.
I was also fortunate in that the kindly (Indian, I think) consultant psychiatrist who finally managed to secure my release, while he had repeatedly warned me that to come off those drugs could be “extremely dangerous,” did not say in what way.
He did say that I was “a very excellent man” and that my spirituality might be enough to sustain me, so that I was left uncertain whether he thought the extreme danger he I might face would be from a potential return of “unmedicated symptoms” of some supposed “mental disorder/s” or from the biochemical effects which any sudden withdrawal might have on any brain/body.
And so, though Raj first of all recommended tapering at 25% a month over four months and then, one week later, instead suggested 10% a week over ten weeks, I decided to ignore this advice, and, for better or for worse, to just go for it, cold turkey, instead.
I’d be MOST interested to hear of the experiences of others who did this.
Soon after my release, I saw, on just two occasions, a tremendously enlightened physician with a passionate interest in neurotransmitters.
Benjo recommended
krill oil,
GABA, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GABA ,
a continuation of my fiancee’s wonderful cooking,
“The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life” by Thomas Moore, and
books by Gates McKibbin, one of which (“Forging Faith,” I believe it was) he very kindly made me a present of.
Why did I find Josef’s essay unsettling, resembling one of those commercials I see where a white-coated doctor talks of Harvard, of Nobel Prize possibilities, and of the need to hurry up and avail of their amazing offer because Big Pharma may take down their commercial again any time now?
I feel grateful to Josef, at least, for reminding me that madness may merely be humorlessness, unconsciousness, that symptom of not yet understanding, accepting and loving either self and so every other person quite enough?
Very best wishes, one and all.
Tom.
“The problems of the mind cannot be solved on the level of the mind. Once you have understood the basic dysfunction, there isn’t really much else that you need to learn or understand. Studying the complexities of the mind may make you a good psychologist, but doing so won’t take you beyond the mind, just as the study of madness isn’t enough to create sanity. You have already understood the basic mechanics of the unconscious state: identification with the mind, which creates a false self, the ego, as a substitute for your true self rooted in Being. You become as a ‘branch cut off from the vine,’ as Jesus puts it.” – Eckhart Tolle in “The Power of Now,” Page 47.
Report comment
Nice work. I really recommend you find some way to help people with a different business model. I don’t actually have any good suggestions on how but it is affecting your reputation. You must have professionals which is very costly and your time is limited.
I really like that you have offered your methods to others and hope lots get involved even if it is because they see the profit.
This is a very complex and difficult situation. Thanks for making the effort.
Report comment
Liam, thank you very much for reminding me of manners!
Josef and any reader, please accept my sincere apologies for a rather snide swipe without offering explanation or justification.
My explanation – neither excuse nor justification – is that I was in particularly bad humor and that that “Russian roulette” reference seems to have really got to me: It’s hardly “Russian” roulette when every chamber contains live ammo – or is it?
After that, things just got worse for me.
And, as for “side-effects,” this term can be used politically, too, of course:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10006551/
I hope that Josef, himself, and/or other/s may offer some follow-up essays offering practical tips for support – biochemical, nutritional, emotional, spiritual and/or other – in coming off any psychotropic drugs, neuroleptics, neurotoxins or narcotics, please.
I believe that hope/love/faith – or reminders of same – are what one needs most to dig oneself out of the hole or oubliette or dungeon in which a dearth of same has buried one, for which of us would not prefer the darkest dungeon with endless hope to the most luxurious palace – with none?
“Angels around befriending virtue’s friend;
Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His Heaven commences ere the world be past!”
from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44292/the-deserted-village
That said, while accepting any “mental disorder” label, like institutionalization, may itself be tremendously poisonous, the psych drugs used to poison a person may obviously have very measurable, deleterious, neurotoxic and other physical effects, too, and the amelioration of any such physical lesions/injuries may itself also encourage the kind of hope which accelerates healing.
Here are a few references, many more of which no doubt Josef and others might provide us with:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4226930/ – effects of second-generation/”atypical” “antipsychotics” on folate (Vit B9), cyanocobalamin/Vit. B12 etc metabolism
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminB12-HealthProfessional/ – B12 metabolism
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5353360/ – folate and one-carbon metabolism in general
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25257064/ – “depression,” antidepressants” and folate/folic acid (also known as Vitamin B9) metabolism
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7139526/ – folic acid/folate/Vit. B9 and ascorbic acid/aa/Vit. C, work together
Also:
“Prognosis
The prognosis of the antipsychotics-induced impaired bone mineral density is good if it is detected early and managed properly.[13] However, chronic pain, osteomalacia, osteoporosis, and bone fracture are common sequels if the condition is left untreated.[6] High morbidity and mortality are associated with a bone fracture in psychiatric patients.[25][26] The risk of complications can be minimized with lifestyle changes, exercise, and a well-balanced diet.[16] And or add-on medications…
Complications
Antipsychotics can cause various metabolic and hormonal side effects, including obesity, dyslipidemia, uncontrolled diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome, QTc abnormality, and the extrapyramidal sequel, myocarditis, bone marrow suppression, cataracts, hyperprolactinemia with or without hypogonadism, and sexual adverse effects.”
From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK572154/
And, of course, for a fascinating and extremely thoughtful previous MIA podcast about withdrawal from psychiatrist-prescribed drugs (though one which I think VASTLY underestimates nocebo effects):
https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/08/maudsley-deprescribing-guidelines-taylor-horowitz/
Sincere apologies once more.
Wishing you music, mirth and merriment, love, light and laughter, hope, humor and honor – unless you have other preferences,
Tom.
Caesar made similar observations:
“With regard to their actual course of studies, the main object of all education is, in their opinion, to imbue their scholars with a firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul, which, according to their belief, merely passes at death from one tenement to another; for by such doctrine alone, they say, which robs death of all its terrors, can the highest form of human courage be developed. Subsidiary to the teachings of this main principle, they hold various lectures and discussions on the stars and their movement, on the extent and geographical distribution of the earth, on the different branches of natural philosophy, and on many problems connected with religion.
— Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico, VI, 14”
– from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid
Also: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10657/pg10657-images.html
Report comment
I propose that we stop using the term “medication” when referring to psychiatric prescriptions. It has been evident since their inception that these substances function as neurotoxins. I believe we should adopt the more accurate term “recklessly prescribed psychiatric neurotoxins.” This change not only more accurately conveys the serious impact these substances have on both neurological and physical health but also holds prescribers—who are cruel or uninformed—accountable for their actions.
Report comment
….drugs are drugs are drugs are drugs are drugs are drugs NOT “meds”, or “medications”, but DRUGS, DRUGS, DRUGS….
Pick ANY DSM-5 bogus, “diagnosis”, and there are a huge variety of DIFFERENT KINDS of DRUGS commonly prescribed to persons labeled as “having” that “diagnosis”….
Pick any drug, and it’s prescribed to a wide, wide range of “diagnoses”, and persons….
There’s nothing like a drug for a diagnosis, it’s all a guessing game on the prescribers part….
Report comment