Five Lessons From Ten Years of Helping People Come Off Psychiatric Drugs Safely

Last week, at the Inner Compass Initiative Conference in Connecticut, I used my 20 minutes on stage to share five key things I’ve learned in my ten years of helping people come off psychiatric drugs safely.
They are things I’ve watched real human beings live through and grow through, day after day. I hope they’ll be helpful to someone here today.
The first thing I’ve learned is that:
Coming off psychiatric drugs - whether antidepressants, antipsychotics, stimulants, mood stabilizers, or benzodiazepines - is not just a medical process. It can also be a profound psychological, social, and even existential one.
People aren’t only tapering a drug; they’re often tapering an identity – a self-story built around being medicated and labelled.
For years, they’ve carried inner stories like:
“There’s something wrong inside me.”
“I’m defective.”
“… Broken.”
“… Crazy.”
“My emotions are dangerous.”
And sometimes, those stories need gradual tapering too!
We can’t replace them overnight – …