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- Page navigation anchor for Guidance for psychological therapists: information for GPs advising patients on antidepressant withdrawalGuidance for psychological therapists: information for GPs advising patients on antidepressant withdrawalStevie Lewis’s article highlighted accumulating evidence that withdrawal effects from SSRIs can be severe and protracted and that GPs have been misled into believing that withdrawal is typically benign and self limiting.1 I have been a regular attendee and speaker at a ‘Critical perspectives and creative solutions’ conference in mental health in UCC, Ireland and have witnessed many people recount similar distressing experiences when attempting to withdraw from antidepressants. Often people describe the withdrawal process being far worse than the distress that initially led them to seeking help in the first place. NICE guidance recommends that GPs provide information about ‘The risk and nature of discontinuation symptoms with cessation of antidepressant.’2 However, having audited documentation of discussion of withdrawal effects upon initiated SSRIs in a rural Irish practice, this rarely actually happens.3 Patients may wish to reconsider their decision if they know that there is approximately one in three chance that they will experience severe withdrawal symptoms and therefore have great difficulty ever stopping treatment.4Stevie also describes the appalling way in which GPs often communicate to patients in a disease-centred model. When a GP prescribes an antidepressant to someone like Stevie and describes an ‘imbalance of serotonin...Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.
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Stevie Lewis's Life and Times viewpoint tells the story of the ‘antidepressant journey’ of countless people who find themselves disbelieved by their doctors - and by their families. This is immensely distressing and has immeasurable knock-on effects on jobs, relationships, families and lives. How on earth have we got into this situation? Where doctors seem to have been misled, and over the long term, by 'the experts' - and 'the prescribing guidance' - to such a damaging extent? It seems that the all-important doctor-patient relationship has very sadly become exploited: where patients' trust in doctors has been used, by the all-pervasive influence of the 'industry', to effectively (though perhaps unwittingly?) betray patients and their prescribers? Most importantly - what can be learned now and how can the situation start to be improved?
Many GPs themselves, and members of their own their families, will have experience of the very same issues described by Stevie in her article - and in her presentation for the AWTTC July 20191 https://youtu.be/4Hg1NwoZR8E . How good it would be if this could trigger the start of the hugely important recognition of the issues so that they can be addressed - for the benefit of all concerned.
If GPs themselves can take a look at the Guidance for Therapists2 - and/or listen to the podcast that I did with Human Givens Institute (for discussion...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.