Dr. Rachael J. Murphy - RiverStep Functional Psychiatry

01/21/2026

The RiverStep process

01/20/2026

Antidepressant continuation and slow tapering with psychological support may reduce relapse risk compared with abrupt discontinuation.

11/07/2025

09/30/2025

Anders Sorensen PhD on how to withdraw safely off antidepressants

Book: Crossing Zero: The Art and Science of Coming off - and Staying Off - Psychiatric Drugs https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FFBDCGP7

08/24/2025

Dr. Anders Sørensen’s “Crossing Zero: The Art and Science of Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs”

Too many patients struggle with withdrawal using inadequate tapering guidelines. The hyperbolic tapering method he explains (based on actual neurobiology) gives us a scientific framework that works.

What’s different:
✓ Trauma-informed approach beyond “just reduce the dose”
✓ Covers major drug classes with specific protocols
✓ Integrates psychological alternatives
✓ Written for patients AND clinicians

This fills the gap between “stay on forever” and “just stop taking it.”

Finally a resource that examines medication’s role AND people’s right to informed discontinuation choices.

Highly recommended! ✨👏🏻

08/18/2025

Why coming off psychiatric medications is so hard

08/06/2025

Dr. Anders Sørensen’s “Crossing Zero: The Art and Science of Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs”

Too many patients struggle with withdrawal using inadequate tapering guidelines. The hyperbolic tapering method he explains (based on actual neurobiology) gives us a scientific framework that works.

What’s different:
✓ Trauma-informed approach beyond “just reduce the dose”
✓ Covers major drug classes with specific protocols
✓ Integrates psychological alternatives
✓ Written for patients AND clinicians

This fills the gap between “stay on forever” and “just stop taking it.”

Finally, a resource that examines medication’s role AND people’s right to informed discontinuation choices.

Already recommending!

08/04/2025

💡 The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines

Backed by research, this groundbreaking book introduced hyperbolic tapering to a broader audience- it’s a method that’s transforming how people successfully reduce psychiatric medications.

What people are discovering:

Many have tried stopping antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and other classes of psychiatric drugs multiple times, doing okay with higher dose reductions, but crashing hard at the final few milligrams.

Doctors often dismissed this as psychological, but the book reveals the real science behind these struggles.

Your brain has limited receptors.
Reducing from 20mg to 10mg might drop occupancy from 95% to 85%— perhaps manageable. But jumping from 5mg to 0mg could mean going from 60% to 0%—a massive neurochemical shift that explains “final dose syndrome.”

How hyperbolic tapering works:

- Recognizes that smaller doses need slower, more careful reductions
- Provides medication-specific schedules based on actual pharmacology
- Validates why those final milligrams are often the most challenging
- Offers practical solutions like liquid formulations for precise micro-dosing

Instead of arbitrary “cut in half every month” approaches, this method slows down exactly when your brain needs the most support.

People who struggled with previous attempts are finding success by going slower as doses get smaller, not faster.

This changes medication discontinuation from guesswork into precision medicine that respects both brain chemistry and human experience.

It is one of the tools I use in practice.