Since the days of the "Psychopharm Revolution," antidepressant medications such as SSRIs and SNRIs have been a foundation of modern psychiatric practice. Today, 40 million Americans take antidepressants, and global antidepressant prescribing is on the rise.
Simultaneously, however, a gap has emerged between pharmacologic innovation and methodology. Amidst patient reports of antidepressant side effects, evidence is mounting that antidepressant discontinuation often leads to withdrawal - which can be severe. And although today''s clinicians are trained how to prescribe antidepressants, they are not trained how to safely stop them.
There is currently zero field-wide consensus regarding antidepressant discontinuation best practices. In addition to a stunning ethical failure, this represents a serious void in the psychiatric model... a riddle that too many patients and clinicians are being forced to solve alone.
Functional Medicine for Antidepressant With
