How User Knowledge of Psychotropic Drug Withdrawal Resulted in the Development of Person-specific Tapering Medication

Coming off psychotropic drugs can cause physical as well as mental withdrawal resulting in failed discontinuation attempts and unnecessary long-term drug use. The first reports about withdrawal appeared in the 1950s, but although patients have been complaining about psychotropic withdrawal problems for decades the first – tardive – acknowledgement by psychatry only came in 1997 with the introduction of the ‘antidepressant discontinuation syndrome’. It was not until 2019 that the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists, for the first time, acknowledged that withdrawal can be severe and persistent. By Jim van Os and Peter C Groot.