In Response to Psychiatric Groups Commentary on Antidepressant Deprescribing

Research Institute Statement No. 03-2026-06-05

As a group of professionals within Inner Compass Research Institute, we address the discussion occurring across professional psychiatric groups regarding the timely topic of antidepressant deprescribing. 
 

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) emphasized its investment in research and clinician training, and recognized that medications can help some individuals. The APA rightly cautions against abrupt discontinuation of medications without medical guidance. 

We agree that the mental health crisis is complex and cannot be solved by deprescribing alone. Yet, APA’s objection to framing the crisis as involving “overmedicalization” or “overprescribing” disregards research, clinical observation, and patient experiences documenting widespread polypharmacy, prescription cascades (often beginning in childhood), inadequate informed consent, dependence including severe and prolonged withdrawal symptoms, and other iatrogenic harms. 

We wish to emphasize the crucial role of individual accounts describing treatment harm. All evidence requires interpretation and contextualization, and narratives from current and former patients must be examined and situated alongside critically-evaluated evidence from other sources. This process requires us to hear and to take personal accounts seriously. Given the history of the mental health system, personal testimony is indispensable to any serious evaluation of the benefits and harms of psychiatric interventions.  

Recently, an influential psychiatric group issued a deprescribing consensus statement: the February 2026 American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology (ASCP) Task Force Report (Goldberg et al.). Compared to the growing insights from individual researchers and advocates on deprescribing, ASCP’s efforts are limited: its guidelines primarily address when clinicians might consider deprescribing but provide limited guidance on how to do so safely. These guidelines do not mention evidence-tested, individualized tapering protocols that better account for withdrawal effects, and nonlinear dose-response relationships that disrupt traditionally recommended linear tapering schedules. 

Finally, we noted more open and spirited discussion around overprescribing and deprescribing emerge at this year’s American Psychiatric Association meeting in San Francisco. Sessions included “Deprescribing: Benzodiazepines,” “Deprescribing Antipsychotics,” “Deprescribing Antidepressants and Mood Stabilizers,” “Stimulants for ADHD: Did We Get It Wrong?” and “The Much Too Medicated Patient: Rational and Irrational Polypharmacy.” Many other sessions also engaged with the broader public debate over the appropriate use of psychotropic medications. 

These conversations reflect a willingness within the psychiatric profession to inspect its own prescribing practices; we welcome those conversations. 

Inner Compass Research Institute 
June 2026