Five recent headlines worth reading
A growing range of voices—from different countries, disciplines, and political leanings—are raising questions about psychiatric drugs, deprescribing, and the systems that shape mental health care. Many of these questions will be familiar to anyone who has been following the conversation for years. Here are five notable pieces from recent weeks.
1. “RFK Jr. Has a Point About Psychiatry. It’s Not the One He’s Making.” (August 8, 2026)
Published in MedPage Today, physician and psychiatry resident Chloe Nazra Lee supports deprescribing and is concerned about what she calls “psychiatric chronification,” but argues RFK Jr. is not addressing the systemic issues tied to this.
Those issues, she says, are underfunded services, long waits, and a profit-driven model that prioritizes drugs over psychotherapy and patient agency.
2. “The Unfragile Mind: A Call For More Hope and Humanity in Mental Health Care” (August 8, 2026)
Published in Psychology Today, UK-based physician and author Gavin Francis argues Western mental health is worsening under current approaches.
He says this is due to “complex interacting factors,” pointing to overmedicalization, expanding diagnostic labels, and the therapeutic professions themselves.
From pop-culture outlet Parade exploring antidepressant withdrawal in detail.
It describes hyperbolic tapering as the “modern gold standard,” featuring extensive commentary explaining the difference between linear and hyperbolic tapers by psychiatrist Bryan Shapiro.
4. “Best Practice for Prescribing Drugs With Dependence Potential” (August 4, 2026)
From The Pharmaceutical Journal—the official journal of the Royal College of Pharmacy (the UK’s main professional body for pharmacists).
Describing how clinicians can differentiate relapse from withdrawal, it says “gradual hyperbolic tapering is recommended to minimise withdrawal-related morbidity.”
5. “The Neuropsychopharmacology of Treatment Discontinuation” (August 10, 2026)
By South Korea-based researcher Baeksun Kim in Neuropsychopharmacology (a Nature journal), this commentary argues that stopping psychiatric drugs is not about mere absence of the drug but an “active neuroadaptive state” that warrants research and its own rigorous science.
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