“I Can’t Remember a Single Day”: New Survey Shows Disastrous Memory Effects of ECT - Mad In America www.madinamerica.com/2025/09/i-ca...

“I Can’t Remember a Single Day”: New Survey Shows Disastrous Memory Effects of ECT - Mad In America www.madinamerica.com/2025/09/i-ca...

Survey Finds Most ECT Patients Suffer Long-term Memory Loss | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/psyc...

Survey Finds Most ECT patients Suffer Long-term Memory Loss | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/psyc...

80 Years On, Do We Know If Electroconvulsive Therapy Works? | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psyc...

“…."Our international survey, the largest ever conducted, seems to confirm audits of ECT leaflets, in Australia and the U.K., which found that the principle of informed consent is being consistently breached," the group wrote in the Journal of Medical Ethics…” #biorisks

Electroconvulsive Therapy Patients Often Not Fully Informed of Risks, Study Suggests www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/g...

ECT: New Studies Detail Harms, Lack of Efficacy, Lack of Informed Consent - Mad In America www.madinamerica.com/2025/08/ect-...

Medical pros of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) exaggerated while cons downplayed, survey findings suggest | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

ECT: New Studies Detail Harms, Lack of Efficacy, Lack of Informed Consent - Mad In America www.madinamerica.com/2025/08/ect-...

Medical pros of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) exaggerated while cons downplayed, survey findings suggest | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Article about our international ECT survey www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/022a099...

A Survey of 1144 ECT Recipients, Family Members and Friends: Does ECT Work? - Read - 2025 - International Journal of Mental Health Nursing - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A Survey of 1144 ECT Recipients, Family Members and Friends: Does ECT Work? - Read - 2025 - International Journal of Mental Health Nursing - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

First paper from our international ECT survey just out. On all 5 efficacy measures most recipients, and most relatives, reported it either made no difference or made things worse. Some were helped though. Thanks to all 1,144 who completed the survey. dx.doi.org/10.1111/inm....

This is what they are called, but there is no proof of neurological mechanisms for these conditions

What we call mental health conditions do not have established neurobiological causes unless you include dementia or learning disability

It's of course just human to forget about having a few conflicts of interest with pharma 😉 jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... @joannamoncrieff.bsky.social @markhoro.bsky.social @profjohnread.bsky.social

Excellent summary of the ongoing controversy about antidepressant withdrawal issues by @joannamoncrieff.bsky.social www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/chem...

Polypharmacy is a huge issue in psychiatric care. I see it too often, mostly as expression of helplessness. Adding more meds is a common reaction, considering iatrogenic harms of (poly)meds less so. www.wsj.com/health/healt...

1. This is an incredibly important paper and I retweet the thread again for two reasons. First, simply because it is such a good paper. Second, because it is necessary to judge the true efficacy of antidepressants (ADs) for other applications beyond depression, not covered in this paper.

"Maybe admitting that a widely used treatment, like antidepressants, has messed up thousands of lives is too much to contemplate" #pharmsky #medsky #madsky

Attended the Union of Concerned Scientist's webinar about protecting scientists engaged in advocacy and I think the most important message was: The more people who do it, the safer we all are. See the list of resources they shared below. Carry your weight and let others carry you!

He isn't disputing that their suffering is real 'It's our response that's the issue. We routinely pathologise, label and medicate kids' emotions and behaviours'. New book by Sami Timimi out tomorrow www.thetimes.com/article/f5b1...

I wrote a little something about why Open Dialogue inspires me, as a survivor and as a practitioner. Be great to know what you think about it ☺️ dialoguerevolution.com/2025/07/20/w...

I’ve been thinking, lately, about using Lived Experience within Open Dialogue. Here’s an article with some of my thoughts. It’d be great to hear yours, too. To me, it’s like making music. dialoguerevolution.com/2025/07/29/u...

Readers of the paper should be encouraged to browse the drug histories of the many thousands of poor souls on the Surviving Antidepressants forum to get a realistic idea about how antidepressants are typically prescribed. www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/

Researchers at Imperial College and King’s College London have been accused of endangering patient safety after publishing a study suggesting that most people do not experience severe withdrawal after coming off the drugs". #backfire www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07...

I delivered a presentation yesterday in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster, on the over-prescribing of antidepressants. Here is one of my slides👇

My response in New York Times: “If you are looking at people on the drugs for eight weeks, you are not going to find withdrawal,” said James Davies “It’s like saying cocaine isn’t addictive because we did a study on people who had only been taking it for eight weeks"👇 www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/h...

I think it is poor. He seems oblivious to the fact that there are longer-term RCTs on withdrawal, and that ANTLER was not included in the review's primary analysis! He writes with authority yet makes very basic errors.....

"This flawed & misleading paper should at the very least be amended to reflect its clear limitations, with a formal acknowledgement by the authors. I will be writing to the Chief Medical Officer to this effect". - Dr Simon Opher, Labour MP www.standard.co.uk/comment/anti...

The BMJ has altered it's original news piece on the recent antidepressant withdrawal study, "to clarify the study’s limitations and to add comments from James Davies" as the editor says.... - We all appreciate this critical amendment 👇 www.bmj.com/content/390/...

Good study on prescription practice trends for pts w personality disorders. Polypharmacy is still an issue, benzos and antidepressants declining. IMO, prescription is often influenced by countertransference resulting from helplessness (not just in PD) bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Wide-ranging discussion with Dr Alex Curmi psychiatrist and podcaster in the UK about withdrawal, “biological depression” and what drugs can and can’t do: bit.ly/3ZS642W bit.ly/3ZQVBol

Our rapid response to a summary of the new problematic antidepressant withdrawal study has been published, together with other interesting and important ones (e.g., by @markhoro.bsky.social ). @joannamoncrieff.bsky.social

Our rapid response in the BMJ highlights how the recent antidepressant withdrawal review confirms withdrawal effects with SSRIs and SNRIs but underestimates their significance due to relying on short-term trials and other methodological problems @ploederl.bsky.social www.bmj.com/content/390/...

'Psychiatrists have been accused of downplaying the risks of antidepressant withdrawal in a new study' www.thecanary.co/global/world...

Remember the 2024 Henssler review claiming only 1 in 6 have antidepressant withdrawal symptoms & 1 in 30 severe symptoms? Here we show it was based on highly unreliable data & can't be used to assess withdrawal effects @ploederl.bsky.social @markhoro.bsky.social 1/n www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The vast majority of included studies in the Henssler AD withdrawal review were not designed to measure withdrawal and only recorded it incidentally among spontaneously reported ‘adverse events’. This is no basis for estimating prevalence 2/n

Only 5 studies in the Henssler AD withdrawal review (not 18 as claimed) used a relevant measure of withdrawal. These find 55% of people reported withdrawal symptoms after stopping antidepressant 3/n

It is worrying that leading psychiatrists have quoted the Henssler review regardless of these limitations (and the more recent Kalfas review) to reassure the public and called on the Royal College of Psychiatrists to weaken its advice on stopping antidepressants 4/n

I was honoured to take part in the FDA's panel on the risks of SSRIs in pregnancy yesterday along with other experts @fda.gov. This is a huge issue with so many young women taking these drugs. I hope the UK and other countries will listen to the evidence presented www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nha...

Good to be up on bsky. Following the storm of interest provoked by our 2022 review, I am pleased to announce the publication of my book telling the story of the serotonin theory of depression from the beginning to recent challenges. Due out Jan 2025. To pre-order lnk.to/chemicallyim...

"There is growing recognition that stopping antidepressants – especially after long-term use – can cause severe and sometimes debilitating withdrawal symptoms, and it is now acknowledged by the UK government as a public health issue” #biorisks re severe, *common drug toxicity and withdrawal effects

Grossly Flawed Paper Denies that Antidepressant Withdrawal Effects are “Clinically Meaningful” - Mad In America www.madinamerica.com/2025/07/gros...

Recent study mimimising antidepressant withdrawal effects has been widely criticised, mainly for misleadingly using short term studies to assess long term effects. Most of the authors are drug company payees.

1 in 4 older adults in Australia are on antidepressants despite being less depressed than younger age groups and more susceptible to antidepressant associated harms e.g. falls, fractures and death www.medicalrepublic.com.au/reducing-ant...

2. Now without fluoxetine which is known to not cause acute withdrawal bc of longer half-life

1. The important study by Rosenbaum et al.'s used a sample of pts who were on antidepressants for 4-12 months. Pts were randomized to placebo vs. continuation for 5-8 days. They did not report the diffs for SMD and MD bc the continuation sample was very small. So I calculated the results