The Dr Louise Newson Podcast 47 - Rethinking mental health and antidepressant prescribing
Feb 17, 2026
Mark Horowitz, psychiatrist and deprescribing researcher who co-wrote the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines and founded Outro Health, discusses why antidepressants and other psychoactive drugs became commonplace. He explores short-term trial limits, withdrawal challenges, increased suicidality risk in younger people, medicalisation of social and hormonal distress, and safer non-drug approaches.
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Clinician’s Shift From Prescribing To Deprescribing
- Louise Newson reflects on prescribing habits from her GP years and now avoids these drugs.
- She says her current patients are healthier after focusing on hormones and deprescribing.
Diagnostics Fueled Medicalisation
- Psychiatric diagnostic categories were socially constructed and medicalised, not born from biochemical proof.
- DSM-III reframed reactions to life as fixed diseases, enabling guideline-driven drug treatment.
Emotional Numbing And Sexual Effects
- A common reported antidepressant effect is emotional numbing with narrowed emotional range.
- That numbing often links to sexual dysfunction and loss of interest that can persist long-term.
