Hyperbolic Tapering Tips: Enablers and Barriers,
with Mark Horowitz, MBBS PhD

ByPDC Administrator

Monday, July 28, 2025
10-11 a.m PST  |  1-2 p.m. EST  |  5-6 p.m. GMT
Register today! Registration closed noon PST July 26, 2025

Dr. Mark Horowitz
Dr. Mark Horowitz

Psychiatric researcher and clinician Mark Horowitz, MBBS, PhD, originator of the Horowitz-Taylor method for hyperbolic tapering of psychotropics and lead author of the 2024 Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines for Antidepressants, Benzodiazepines, Gabapentinoids and Z-drugs, will present an overview of the facilitators to implementing careful tapering in clinical practice as well as some barriers. He will also touch upon a few tips and tricks, such as micro-tapering, the art of updosing and reinstatement, and managing protracted withdrawal.

A short question and answer period will follow Mark’s presentation. A video of the webinar will be available for those who register but find they cannot attend. Please register for this webinar today.

The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines have been endorsed by the UK Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. With this book as a basis, Mark, who is a Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry in the NHS, has been commissioned by Health Education England to prepare a teaching module for NHS clinicians on how to safely stop antidepressants.

Mark holds a PhD from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London in the neurobiology of depression and antidepressant action. He is Visiting Lecturer in Psychopharmacology at King’s College London and an Associate Editor of the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology. 

The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines
The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines: Antidepressants, Benzodiazepines, Gabapentinoids and Z-drugs by Mark Horowitz and David M. Taylor

He co-authored the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ guidance on ‘Stopping Antidepressants’ and his work informed the recent NICE guidelines on safe tapering of psychiatric medications, including antidepressants, benzodiazepines and z-drugs. He has worked with the NHS to develop national guidance for safe deprescribing for clinicians. 

Mark has written many papers about safe approaches to tapering psychiatric medications, including publications in The Lancet Psychiatry, JAMA Psychiatry, and Schizophrenia Bulletin.

His own experience of difficulty of coming off psychiatric medications has informed his interest in rational psychopharmacology and deprescribing psychiatric medication. 

Register today! We will email a reminder and webinar link shortly before the date of the webinar. Registration closes noon PST July 26, 2025. If you cannot attend but are interested in receiving notification of other PDC events, please complete this form.

Bridging to Recovery While Deprescribing Psychiatric Drugs,
with Anders Sørensen, PhD

ByPDC Administrator

Friday, June 27, 2025
10-11 a.m PST  |  1-2 p.m. EST  |  5-6 p.m. GMT
Register today! Registration closes noon PST June 26, 2025

When psychiatric drug treatment comes to an end, how may a clinician minimize the risk of withdrawal or relapse while deprescribing? In this webinar presented by the Psychotropic Deprescribing Council, Danish psychologist and researcher Anders Sørensen, PhD offers his views on this important clinical skill, discussing his work in helping patients find their ways through tapering off antidepressants and psychiatric drugs to a new life supported by  psychotherapy.

A short question and answer period will follow Anders’s presentation. A video of the webinar will be available for those who register but find they cannot attend. Please register for this webinar today.

Early in his training, Anders observed that the masking effects of psychiatric drugs often interfered with his clients’ abilities to address the root causes of their emotional distress and that these drugs could be very difficult to stop. He then obtained his PhD in psychiatric drug tapering and now specializes in advising people how to come off psychiatric drugs through gradual, hyperbolic tapering while providing psychotherapy to enable them to stay off.

Anders Sørensen, PhD

Anders’s most recent work is a book, Crossing Zero – The Art and Science of Coming Off and Staying Off Psychiatric Drugs, to be published this summer, which incorporates the concept of recovery into psychiatric drug treatment. The first part of the book provides a clear, thoughtful interpretation of  how psychiatric drugs do and do not work. In the second part, Anders explains the science of hyperbolic tapering and step-by-step methods to minimize the risk of withdrawal symptoms. In the last part, Life beyond Medication, Anders explores psychotherapeutic approaches to overcoming the difficult thoughts, behaviors, and emotions that underlie our various mental health diagnostic labels.

Anders’s scientific research includes systematic reviews such as Sørensen, et al. (2022). Description of antidepressant withdrawal symptoms in clinical practice guidelines on depression: A systematic review and Sørensen, et al. (2021). The relationship between dose and serotonin transporter occupancy of antidepressants—A systematic review. In addition to his writing, research, and clinical practice, Anders shares information about psychiatric drug tapering with the general public through social media, interviews, articles, and his popular YouTube channel, @AndersSorensen.

Register today! We will email a reminder and webinar link shortly before the date of the webinar. Registration closes noon PST June 26, 2025. If you cannot attend but are interested in receiving notification of other PDC events, please complete this form.