“FND occurs when the brain has difficulty sending and receiving signals properly, even though scans like MRI or CT appear normal. It affects movement, sensation, speech, cognition, and other functions. Symptoms are genuine, involuntary, and can be disabling.”
—NIH website
More and more people are being diagnosed with ‘functional neurological disorder’ (FND). FND is essentially a term for ‘unexplained’ symptoms—including severely disabling symptoms such as movement disorders, blackouts and so-called ‘non-epileptic seizures’—and which doctors say has no clear cause. I began to notice about 10 years ago that these ‘unexplained’ symptoms were the same symptoms as those experienced by some people when taking prescribed drugs for ‘depression’, ‘anxiety’, ‘stress’, etc. and especially when trying to reduce or come off these psychiatric drugs.
I began to meet more and more people with the FND diagnosis who were also experiencing withdrawal effects after stopping antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and other psychiatric drugs—but no doctors seemed to connect the two. I have now come to think that the diagnosis of FND is essentially a way to dismiss adverse effects and withdrawal symptoms—so that doctors can continue to say that psychiatric drugs have no such effects because these effects are diagnosed as something else, even while admitting that they can’t explain what that something else is.
Background
I had trained over some years and became qualified as a Human Givens Practitioner in 2011, and subsequently worked as a private Human Givens practitioner/psychotherapist in Helensburgh, Scotland. This work brought me into contact with many people who, it turned out, were struggling with the effects of having taken medicines prescribed usually by their primary care physician for ‘depression’, ‘anxiety’, ‘insomnia’ etc. This led on to the co-founding of a local ‘motley-crew’ patient self-help group, Recovery and Renewal, in 2013.
Initially we met locally to offer companionship and free non-drug wellness support—and also to ask collectively for formal National Health Service (NHS) support for people who were struggling with adverse and withdrawal effects of these very commonly prescribed drugs. Our efforts were mostly met with fobbing off by local GPs and by official NHS and Scottish Health service bodies.
My lay-person research campaign began as an attempt to formally raise concerns with prescribers about the apparently overlooked adverse and withdrawal effects of antidepressants and benzodiazepines—which were and are (especially antidepressants) commonly prescribed in primary care settings. People who had come together through our Recovery and Renewal group (which later become a wide-reaching Facebook Group), were (and are) fellow researchers and campaigners. We are now mainly active on X @recover2renew.
Questioning ‘Unexplained Symptoms’
We began questioning the diagnosis of Medically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS) and Functional Neurological Disorders (FND) in 2016—as it was apparent by then that these mysterious disabling conditions (of ‘unknown aetiology’) were appearing in people’s medical records and that these ‘conditions’ (listed in the DSM) clearly shared many symptoms with antidepressant (and benzodiazepine) side effects and/or withdrawal effects.
I came across a book, ABC of Medically Unexplained Symptoms (2013) and was startled to find chapters written by the (now internationally well-known) FND ‘experts’ Jon Stone and Alan Carson in Scotland—chapters in particular which seemed to refer to the very symptoms that people were experiencing as a consequence of taking (and/or trying to withdraw from) antidepressants & benzodiazepines.
Being also based in Scotland, this was particularly pertinent to the people in our local group, with Stone and Carson having close connections with (and funding from) the Scottish Government and Scotland’s National Health Service. It became apparent that ‘Medically Unexplained Symptoms’ (a DSM diagnosis) seemed to be becoming more often diagnosed as ‘Functional Neurological Symptoms’ (FND).
My own first article was published by Mad in America in December 2016: “An Outsider’s Observation: Medically Unexplained Somatic Symptoms in General Practice”:
“The GPs, having to comply with their professional guidelines and ‘best practice’, become frustrated when the patients keep coming back with various ‘functional’, ‘somatic’ or ‘Medically Unexplained Symptoms’ (MUS) for which tests are carried out until it is established that there is ‘no physical cause’ — so the GP then, again following professional guidelines, tries to ‘reassure’ the patient that there is ‘no disease’ and that CBT and exercise – and perhaps ‘acceptance’ and ‘re-attribution’ therapies are what is needed.”
From early 2017 I and others wrote to Jon Stone raising our concerns, in particular about antidepressants and benzodiazepines. He answered initially and then stated that he could not communicate further with us.
Our Parliamentary Petitions—Scotland and Wales
In mid-2017 we launched our Scottish Petition, where I am the ‘named Petitioner on behalf of Recovery and Renewal’.
“If it cannot be acknowledged that patients can have sustained functional nervous system dysfunction and damage as a consequence of taking medicines ‘as prescribed’ (and sometimes over many years), systemic medical learning and improvement is stifled and patients continue to be further harmed. Meanwhile, the initial prescribing risks remain severely underestimated and misleading prescribing guidelines and ‘best practice’ advice persist unchanged.”
It so happened that also in mid-2017 Jon Stone and Alan Carson were awarded the President’s Medal by the then president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Simon Wessely, and later that year Stone and Carson co-chaired a landmark international conference in Edinburgh on FND.
Meanwhile our Scottish and Welsh Petitions made their way slowly through respectively the Scottish & Welsh Parliamentary petition processes, the Scottish Petition being eventually closed in March 2021. This was a gruelling and time-consuming process and seemed to drag on forever (especially in Scotland). The evidence is all there—archived on Scottish Government website. Of course, it was all eventually effectively ‘buried’.
We had also been working with the British Medical Association (BMA) Board of Science, as further detailed in a BMJ article:
“As explained in the ‘petition background’, we had previously already attempted to engage collaboratively with the medical profession and politicians. We have been involved with the British Medical Association (BMA) Board of Science project working on this issue since early 2014. Our Petition calls for recognition of the BMA published findings, 2015 (4) and BMA call for action, October 2016 and updated (5).
We are invited to participate in the BMA Board of Science round-table stakeholder meeting scheduled for 18 April 2018”
“…the evidence’ of prescribed harm is being actively attributed to vague psychiatric diagnoses such as ‘medically unexplained’, ‘functional’ and ‘somatic’ disorders. Patients suffering complex, serious and disabling symptoms – from prescribed drug damage and neurotoxicity – are being directed to websites such as http://www.neurosymptoms.org/ and encouraged to engage in (perhaps online) Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and acceptance of their mysteriously acquired disability.”
In 2018 with the help of James Moore (well-known now to Mad in America!) and his wife Miranda we put together an Infographic about what seemed to be happening to so many people—and this was shared on social media and through a Human Givens Institute article where Moore shared his own experience:
Formal Journal Publication
In 2020 we formally published in the Sage journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology a collated summary of the very extensive raw patient-experience evidence which our Scottish and Welsh public petitions had gathered. This showed clearly the ‘patient journey’ accounts, where previously well people had been rendered extremely unwell—or had died—as a consequence of taking antidepressants and benzodiazepines, etc. ‘as prescribed’, and sometimes over long periods of many years:
Stevie Lewis (IIPDW Board member), Welsh petitioner and a co-author of the above paper and other published ‘patient experience’ work, developed a severe movement disorder due to SSRI withdrawal and was diagnosed with FND. She wrote this blog for Rxisk in 2020: “My Doctor thinks I’m Faking It; SSRI Movement Disorders”. Many other people are getting this FND diagnosis; in our own ‘patient research group’ this also included Alyne Duthie, Fiona French, Sharron Hudson—and we are hearing of countless others daily.
Mad in America picked up another two articles that we had written, “Antidepressant Withdrawal Misdiagnosed as Functional Disorder” and by Stevie Lewis, “Four Essential Studies on Antidepressant Withdrawal Every Prescriber Must Read”.
Of course, the Covid pandemic added more layers of complication—with ‘Covid-anxiety’ having resulted in a huge surge of the prescribing of drugs for ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’, etc. Further increases in prescribing then followed for Covid vaccine-related issues and Long Covid.
We have continued throughout to try to raise concerns, via the proper channels such as writing to the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and British Journal of General Practice (BJGP). For example:
‘Grosset wrote in 2004 “Prescribed drugs and neurological complications”, concluding that “A wide spectrum of neurological presentations may be caused or precipitated by drugs, prescribed and non-prescribed. Doctors have a responsibility in preventing iatrogenic symptoms by careful prescribing, and in identifying drug induced syndromes”’.
In 2024 Horowitz and Taylor published the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines—and our 2020 Guy et al. ‘Patient Voice’ paper is cited throughout:
“There are numerous overlapping symptoms of psychiatric drug withdrawal with these conditions: tremor, weakness (functional neurological disorder); fatigue, tiredness (chronic fatigue syndrome) and numerous symptoms that could be grouped under the category of ‘medically unexplained symptoms’ when the symptoms are not attributed to psychiatric drug withdrawal. These misdiagnoses can lead to a failure to recommend appropriate treatment, extensive medical investigation and a feeling on behalf of patients that they were not listened to”.
The Response?
It has become abundantly clear that, from the very outset, the alarms we were and are raising are perceived as unwanted and controversial to the mainstream medical ‘view’—and to be ignored or suppressed. There continues to this day to be very strong pushback academically and on social media, and the press is very wary of ‘going there’. Meanwhile the FND bandwagon has been gathering pace and gaining ever wider global following and support, with the international FND Society having been being founded in 2018 following the 2017 Edinburgh Conference and having recently held a sixth International Conference in Baltimore.
Two recent papers, both co-authored by Jon Stone and Timothy Nicholson (neuropsychiatrist, London) and others, are especially troubling. In particular, neither of these papers appear give any proper attention to the effects of medicines widely and commonly prescribed for FND ‘co-morbidities’—the very drugs that also cause these symptoms.
Fundraising charities such as FND Hope International and FND Action UK have Jon Stone, Timothy Nicholson, and other well-known FND ‘experts’ as trustees and/or on their medical advisory boards.
Several of us wrote to Jon Stone at various times about the concerning ‘medication’ information on his website—especially regarding antidepressants and antidepressant withdrawal:
“With some types of antidepressants, there may sometimes be symptoms when the tablet is stopped. If this happens these withdrawal symptoms are usually over within a week or so.”
He eventually added the second sentence below after the Royal College of Psychiatrists recognised antidepressant withdrawal in 2020:
“Some patients report longer duration symptoms triggered by this withdrawal syndrome or the medication themselves.”
Where are we now?
Now in 2026 there are many Facebook Groups and other peer support groups set up by people who are diagnosed with FND, as well as the charities (FND Hope, FND Action, FND Society etc) ‘raising awareness of and funding for FND research’. FND is increasingly ‘in the news’.
In January 2026 I submitted the submission below to the Scottish Parliament Petition Committee in response to Petition PE2165.
My submission includes:
“The fact that more and more people in Scotland are being diagnosed with FND is clear proof that something is going very seriously wrong. GPs and other HCPs are being actively taught to miss—and mis-diagnose as FND—the most important signals which should alert them to considering possible adverse effects of these commonly prescribed ‘safe and effective’ [sic] drugs which they are continuing to start new people on every single day—as well as recommending risky too-fast tapering, switching, adding more drugs, and other interventions which can and do exacerbate the wide-ranging adverse drug effects being suffered by patients.”
“Please would the Petition Committee take appropriate action now to convey to the Scottish Government that many people are becoming harmed—and urge that the adverse effects of commonly prescribed antidepressants etc. no longer be missed and mis-diagnosed as FND.”
With the alarming rise and rise of prescriptions of stimulants and antidepressants for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) also becoming apparent, perhaps this is no surprise either, from ‘Prevalence of ADHD in FND’:
“Approximately one in six individuals with FND also meet criteria for ADHD, with particularly elevated rates observed in functional tic-like presentations and in children and adolescents.”
Conclusion and questions
We have to wonder what is going on here. Is prescribed harm being hidden within FND diagnoses? And more and more of it? (And, whilst my own focus has been on drugs prescribed for ‘mental health’, what of the iatrogenic harms of other prescribed drugs and medical procedures?)
All the calls are for more funding for FND research, and FND patients are being encouraged to run the FND Charities and encouraged to ‘raise awareness of FND and raise funding for FND research’.
Meanwhile… ever more people are being put at risk via ‘prescribing guidance’ for prior and later-developing ‘co-morbidities’ of FND. This is very deeply concerning. There is NO FOCUS WHATSOEVER on what might be leading to more and more people suffering seriously debilitating ‘co-morbidities’ and neurological damage. And there is no sign of any attempts to stem the soaring prescribing of these essentially toxic drugs, leading on to serious disabling consequences.
