The Myth of Low-Serotonin & Antidepressants - Dr. Mark Horowitz

Dr. Mark Horowitz, MBBS PhD is a training psychiatrist and Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) and an Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at UCL. He runs the Psychotropic drug Deprescribing Clinic in North East London NHS Foundation Trust. Mark completed a PhD in the neurobiology of depression and the action of antidepressants at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London.

Dr. Horowitz is an Associate Editor of the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology. He co-authored the recent Royal College of Psychiatry guidance on ‘Stopping Antidepressants’, and his work has informed the recent NICE guidelines on safe tapering of psychiatric medications. He has written several papers about safe approaches to tapering psychiatric medications including publications in The Lancet Psychiatry, JAMA Psychiatry and Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Dr. Horowitz has an interest in rational psychopharmacology, the way in which psychiatric drugs are often mis-represented to the public and safely deprescribing these drugs.

Link to study -
The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0

0:00 - Intro
2:45 - Rise in Antidepressants
4:07 - Disease Centered Model
7:17 - Drug Centered Model
8:59 - What do Antidepressants Actually Do?
10:28 - Antidepressants vs. Placebo
13:59 - Withdrawal
18:10 - Misdiagnosis
19:19 - Helping People Off Antidepressants
23:25 - Hyperbolic Tapering
26:45 - What Needs to Change

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5cT-2BLWk0