MIA Articles about Psychiatric Drugs and Withdrawal

New research by Jim van Os and Peter Groot finds that using hyperbolic tapering to discontinue antidepressants reduces withdrawal effects.

In an interview with MIA, Dr. Horowitz discusses his recent article on why tapering off antidepressants can take months or even years.

After long-term use, most people are going to have serious symptoms when stopping SSRIs. Many people are going to have transient, mild to moderate difficulty and some are going to end up falling down the akathisia rabbit hole. That is a long, difficult drop.

Antidepressant users share their frustrations towards a healthcare system that overprescribes but is ill-equipped to support with discontinuation and withdrawal symptoms.

Study reveals most patients are dissatisfied with prescribers' support when discontinuing antidepressants.

Published in the peer-reviewed journal Advances in Mind Body Medicine, this case series is the first of its kind to document the methodology employed in the successful discontinuation of a range of psychotropic medications, with holistic support interventions providing long-term mood support.

New guidance for primary care doctors in the UK on antidepressant discontinuation acknowledges severe and long-lasting withdrawal symptoms.

The conventional wisdom is that antidepressant medications are effective and safe. However, the scientific literature shows that the conventional wisdom is flawed. While all prescription medications have side effects, antidepressant medications appear to do more harm than good as treatments for depression.

If I thought that it was possible, I would have opened a string of clinics all over the country to help get people off of antidepressants.  Unfortunately, the problems that sometimes occur when people try to stop an SSRI antidepressant are much more severe and long-lasting than the medical profession acknowledges, and there is no antidote to these problems. The truth is, giving people information about taking antidepressants is like giving information to people who are enroute to a casino; they go because they hear that some people win (at least for a time), but the losers are the ones who ultimately pay for it all — and the odds are not in their favor.

A new article in Lancet Psychiatry finds that slower tapering of SSRIs is better for preventing antidepressant withdrawal effects.

The New Yorker's story on Laura Delano and psychiatric drug withdrawal is a glass-half-full story: It addresses a problem in psychiatry and yet hides the deeper story to be told. A story of how her recovery resulted from seeing herself within a counter-narrative that tells of the harm that psychiatry can do.

Researchers review the risks and benefits of deprescribing from antipsychotic drugs and advocate for a patient-centered approach to tapering.

Mark Horowitz and David Taylor provide advice on how to tell the difference between antidepressant withdrawal and depression relapse.

A new study by Peter Groot and Jim van Os has found that tapering strips help people successfully discontinue antidepressant medications.

MIA's Richard Sears interviews psychotherapist Anne Guy about working with clients withdrawing from psychiatric drugs.

Despite safety concerns, a new study reveals that there has been no change in the use of benzodiazepines in the elderly from 2001 to 2010.

Very few doctors know anything about withdrawal and make horrible mistakes. If they taper at all, they do it far too quickly because the few guidelines that exist recommend far too quick tapering.

In the first systematic review of withdrawal problems that patients experience when trying to get off SSRI antidepressant medications, researchers found that withdrawing from SSRIs was comparable to trying to quit addictive benzodiazepines.

A new literature review reinforces the need to “down-titrate” or taper antidepressants, especially drugs like Celexa and Paxil.

Growing rates of long-term psychiatric drug prescriptions and documented issues with withdrawal demonstrate a need for safe deprescribing practices.

There are a vast number of studies that document the diverse range of side effects caused by antipsychotic drugs. These adverse effects include brain...

Researchers interviewed people who were given medical advice to discontinue antidepressants.

Peter Gøtzsche and Anders Sørensen on trying to get a review of methods for safe antidepressant withdrawal published in Cochrane: "They sent us on a mission that was impossible to accomplish" to "protect the psychiatric guild."

Medically-induced harm—affecting tens of millions of people worldwide—has taken the field decades to take seriously.

The problems related to the use of antidepressants cannot be solved by an oversimplified psychiatry brainwashed by the pharmaceutical industry.