Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs: A Harm Reduction Approach to Medication Withdrawal | Will Hall

Download the Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs free here: http://willhall.net/comingoffmeds. Also available in Spanish, Greek, and German. Disponible tambien en español.

Psychiatric medications can sometimes be very useful, but there is often little information or guidance when the risks and harm start to outweigh the benefits. Will Hall provides an introductory overview of how to come off psychiatric medication.




Will Hall is a survivor of a schizophrenia diagnosis who today works as a therapist and teaches internationally on mental diversity, including psychiatric medication. This video provides some basic guidance for anyone considering reducing or coming off psychiatric medications and their supporters, and is discussed in greater detail in the Harm Reduction Guideto Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs.

You can contact Will at http://www.willhall.net



Disclaimer: This video is for educational purposes and is not medical advice. While everyone is different, coming off medications, especially abruptly, can sometimes be dangerous. Seek support when possible and use caution.

For more information on psychiatric medications and withdrawal, go to http://www.beyondmeds.com, http://www.willhall.net/comingoffmeds, http://www.madinamerica.com, http://www.comingoff.com, http://www.peter-lehmann-publishing.com, http://www.theicarusproject.net/comin..., and Journal of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing http://bit.ly/wbUA6A.



This video is Creative Commons copyright 2012 BY-NC-ND; you are free to share.

Thanks to Kent Bye, Jen Gouvea, and Jonathan Marrs for production.

• Category

  Education

[stehoz87]

pure/actual schizo is not 'curable' is it?

[Will Hall]

That is the view widely held by the medical establishment, but clinical outcome research consistently recognizes that people can and do recover. Courtney Harding's work and the National Empowerment Center, as well as the Guide I wrote, provide more information. When they meet people who have recovered, believers in the 'incurable' dogma tend to claim we aren't "really" schizophrenics or we were "misdiagnosed" - an example of the "no true Scotsman" logical fallacy.

[Thomas Jespersen]

I have an appointment with my psychiatrist about coming of meditation. You say the withdrawal effects can look like a psychosis. How can I tell the difference?

[Will Hall]

Check my downloadable guide for information, withdrawal effects often emerge right after a reduction in dosage and tend to subside after time, but this is not always true and it can be hard to distinguish. The key is patience and developing alternative tools for wellness.

[pastyfacial]

hey will. just watching this video out of interest. i am fortunate enough to never have had any mental issues. Thought i would just say what a well balanced, well grounded bloke you seem. Clearly noone ever wishes to have mental problems, but it seems if you can make it through to the other side, you can often become a better, wiser person because of it.

[Will Hall]

Thank you~~ Will

[Will Hall]

Meditation has also been key to me in taming and working my my experiences. Some people do find meditation can make anxiety worse though, and it also depends on the technique and tradition. Body and breath awareness meditation, rather than mantra or devotional meditation, have been more useful to me, and that's what I often encourage people to start with. - Will

[kramea2]

Yes, you can. That is the only real hope to keep going too

[kramea2]

A social death sentence these labels, quite true.

[HARDEY LEONE]

I hate this cunt

[Transmintosity]

Yup, I'm in the same position.

[Transmintosity]

...this simple truth, the truth that all psychiatry's talk about caring for the patient is cant, or at least only sincere when there is no conflict of interests between patient and psychiatrist, then the self-preservation instinct takes over, and the traditional orgy of victim-blaming escalates apace!

[Transmintosity]

Yet what is psychiatry doing about it all? Instead of mobilizing the limited resources at their disposal to minimize the suffering of the patient, they instead scapegoat the patient for the ills of their profession, which proves that this is a self-serving profession, harming the patients and then leaving the patient to wallow in his own misery and despair. If you follow the premise of psychiatry's inaction and indifference in this regards through to its logical conclusion, you will understand..

[Transmintosity]

Yet on and and on it went, even though I only went off it for four days and went back up to half the original dose, and there in located the problem; the seeming interminableness of it all, and the concomitant claustrophobia.

[Will Hall]

You can download my Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, at my website. - Will

[Transmintosity]

I was quasi-catatonic half the time, because I was just so traumatized by the whole experience, I just couldn't speak to people, especially seeing as no one could really understand what you were going through (which was an inexhaustible source of frustration and rage, because that didn't stop people trying to make my experiences fit into their own). Then there was the extreme sensitivity to sounds and images, sometimes occasioning spasms and suffusion of my body with electricity.

[Transmintosity]

...for the better, what with the constant morbid ruminations on space, death and time. Your imagination is so vivid as well, I couldn't stop thinking about breaking my own legs, about what it would be like to have a sword sticking in spine, because only unpleasant thoughts assail your imagination when you feel like that. I experienced the whole gamut of negative emotions. Then there was the seizures and the muscle spasms, and the terror occasioned by the loss of the control of your body.