Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal II: The Psychiatrist’s Perspective on Challenges, Opportunities, and Shared Decision Making (webinar)

For more information, or to register for this webinar, click here. 

Overview

This second series of on-line continuing education presentations will inform participants of what we know about withdrawing from psychiatric medications. This set of 8 monthly webinars will focus on the views of internationally recognized psychiatrists and begin on June 19 with a town hall session hosted by Robert Whitaker with 3 participants. One will be a person with lived experience in withdrawing, the second and third will be a psychiatrist and a psychologist.

Times for the webinars will be 1:30-3 PM Eastern US; 10:30 AM-Noon Pacific.Because several of our presenters are internationally-based, there may be some slight time changes but we will announce them as soon as possible. All webinars will be posted immediately after the "live" events so that they will be available for viewing by all registered students for at least one year afterward.

The schedule for the webinars is as follows:

June 18, 2018: Robert Whitaker Town Hall

Town Hall discussion on key issues from 3 perspectives: a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a person with lived experience in withdrawing.

July 17, 2018: Joanna Moncrieff, MD

The nature of psychiatric drugs, what we know and don't know about what they do to the brain with repeated and long-term use and how these changes affect the experience of withdrawal; study on antidepressant withdrawal and antipsychotic withdrawal.

August 21, 2018: Sandy Steingard, MD

Working in a public health clinic: what are the barriers to providing clients with withdrawal information and support for those who want to taper from the medications? What has she learned since she implemented a withdrawal program six years ago?

September 18, 2018: David Healy, MD and Johanna Ryan

SSRIs and sexual dysfunction: A look at this adverse effect during SSRI use, and PSSD: sexual dysfunction that persists after withdrawal, and what this may signal regarding renormalization of serotonergic function.

October 16, 2018: Sami Timimi, MD

Withdrawal issues with children and adolescents, challenges and opportunities

November 20, 2018: Swapnil Gupta, MD

Applying the basic principles of deprescribing to psychiatry: An intervention aimed at reducing the use of inappropriate medications, deprescribing was initially introduced by the field of geriatric medicine. In this talk, Dr. Gupta will discuss how deprescribing can serve as a model to reduce the superfluous use of psychotropic medications and how it can be modified for use in psychiatric settings.

December 11, 2018: Pesach Lichtenberg, MD

Psychiatric drug withdrawal in Israel's Soteria House programs

January 15, 2019: Roger Mulder, MD

Antidepressant withdrawal study: Results, and protocols used, and lessons learned from it.

These topics are among the least understood and most critical issues facing psychiatry in the decades ahead given the fact that well-constructed unbiased research shows clearly that most individuals do better in the mid- to long-term if they can reduce their reliance on psychiatric medications.

Note: This series is not designed to provide advice to individuals who are seeking to taper from their medications. It is, instead, designed to explore the risks and rewards of doing so, and methods for doing so successfully. It is also designed to identify the many shortcomings in our medical and societal knowledge about withdrawing from psychiatric drugs.