Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs

Many visitors to our forum are asking for information about safely coming off psychiatric drugs. So we’ve put together a list of resources that can help.

Most psychiatric drugs can cause withdrawal problems. This includes life-threatening emotional and physical reactions. Withdrawal from psychiatric drugs should only be done carefully under experienced clinical supervision.

Useful Resources

• Coming Off: A comprehensive website that provides details about coming off psychiatric drugs by type of drug. There is detailed advice on withdrawal. You can also read people’s stories and experiences of coming off psychiatric drugs, alternatives, and how to plan your withdrawal.
• Harm Reduction Guide To Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs (PDF): This 40-page guide gathers some great information about reducing and coming off psychiatric medication.
• Two useful guides from Harvard Harvard Women’s Health Watch: Going off antidepressants and How to taper off your antidepressant.
• Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs: Successful Withdrawal from Neuroleptics, Antidepressants, Lithium, Carbamazepine and Tranquilizers, edited by Peter Lehmann. This is a resource with lots of personal stories about coming off psychiatric drugs. Many people have recommended this book.
• An article from The Pharmaceutical Journal: Case-based learning: safe withdrawal and tapering of antidepressant: How to use hyperbolic tapering to avoid withdrawal effects when stopping an antidepressant.

Talk about coming off psychiatric drugs