MIA Articles about Psychiatric Drugs and Withdrawal

Three recently published papers, along with a report by a Minnesota group on health outcomes in that state, provide new reason to mull over...

A new study shows how different patients respond to tapering antipsychotic medication under expert guidance, highlighting personal empowerment and the complexities of withdrawal.

Antidepressant withdrawal is no longer an unknown disorder since knowledge on this topic has grown enough to be translated into practice. As proposed by George Engel in 1977, medical doctors, including psychiatrists, can observe and listen to their patients and develop a program to treat withdrawal and restore health.

Effects of discontinuing SSRIs and SNRIs reported on an online forum indicate significant and long-lasting withdrawal symptoms.

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

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.

Martin Harrow and Thomas Jobe have a new article coming out in Schizophrenia Bulletin that I wish would be read by everyone in our society with an interest in “mental health.” Harrow and Jobe, who conducted the best study of long-term schizophrenia outcomes that has ever been done, do not present new data in this article, but rather discuss the central question raised by their research: Does long-term treatment of schizophrenia with antipsychotic medications facilitate recovery? Or does it hinder it?

Prominent researchers conduct a review of antidepressant withdrawal incidence, duration, and severity. Results lead to call for new clinical guidelines.

New research finds that the non-physical aspects of withdrawal from SSRIs are often overlooked.

When the benzodiazepines were first introduced, it was widely claimed, both by psychiatrists and by pharma, that they were non-addictive. This claim was subsequently abandoned in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and the addictive potential of these products is now recognized and generally accepted.

Adverse physiological symptoms of antidepressant withdrawal are regularly mistaken to be other problems to the detriment of the patient.

While increasing numbers of Americans are being prescribed antidepressants, the Centers for Disease Control reports that suicide rates increased 28% from 1999 to 2010. Trained professionals remain unable to predict who is at risk. Their guess is as good as chance.

Researchers suggest that antidepressant withdrawal can be a possible precipitant of suicide.

A new study reveals that more than two-thirds of patients experiencing antidepressant withdrawal were misdiagnosed with psychiatric disorders.

For thirty years, Dr. Giovanni Fava has sounded the alarm on the long-term effects of antidepressants and the risks of withdrawal, pushing back against pharmaceutical narratives.

My study, in which I slowly withdrew people from prescribed antipsychotics and antidepressants, found that it is possible to decrease both spending on psychiatric drugs and patients' chronic exposure to them. In general, the drug-reduction process was well-tolerated and well-accepted among those treated.

New research finds insomnia, anxiety, and depression are common symptoms of antipsychotic withdrawal, highlighting difficulties of discontinuation.

Study finds that 74% of patients with a psychotic disorder off antipsychotics at end of 10 years are in remission.

“Short and simple psychological programs can prevent people from relapsing when they stop their antidepressants.”

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

Research suggests that slowly tapering off an antipsychotic reduces the risk of withdrawal psychosis compared to abrupt discontinuation.

The use of antidepressants has increased substantially in recent years, yet relatively few studies have asked patients about their experiences with these drugs. A...

As I see it this website is about filling the gaping hole in the official literature on mental health problems and their treatment. Since these problems were declared to be diseases, ‘just like any other’, academic papers present them as if they were simply technical glitches in the way the brain or mind works. They can be identified by ticking a few boxes, and easily treated by tweaking the corresponding defect with a drug or a few sessions of quick-fix therapy. What it is like to experience these problems and their treatments is nowhere to be found. Yet in post after post on this site among others, we hear about the harm produced by drugs that are prescribed for mental health problems.

Online communities are stepping in to help people facing withdrawal effects amass information and receive support for their withdrawal experiences.

Psychiatrists have made hundreds of millions of people dependent on psychiatric drugs and yet have done virtually nothing to find out how to help the patients come off them again.