Dr Peter Gøtzsche’s Life-Saving Advice For People Seeking Mental Health Services

Esteemed medical doctor, researcher and author, Peter C. Gøtzsche, is currently releasing a (free) serialised version of his book: Mental Health Survival Kit and Withdrawal from Psychiatric Drugs.

In Chapter 1: This Book Might Save Your Life, Dr Gøtzsche offers six suggestions to ensure readers avoid being harmed by psychiatry:

1. WARNING! Psychiatric drugs are addictive. Never stop them abruptly because withdrawal reactions may consist of severe emotional and physical symptoms that can be dangerous and lead to suicide, violence and homicide.¹
2. If you have a mental health issue, don’t see a psychiatrist. It is too dangerous and might turn out to be the biggest error you made in your entire life.²
3. Don’t believe what you are told about psychiatric disorders or psychiatric drugs. It is very likely to be wrong.³
4. Believe in yourself. You are likely right, and your doctor is wrong. Don’t ignore your hunches or feelings. You can easily be led astray if you don’t trust yourself.⁴
5. Never let others have responsibility for your life. Stay in control and ask questions.
6. Your spouse or parent might be your best friend or your worst enemy. They might believe what doctors tell them and might even see it to their advantage to keep you drugged.

In Chapter 2: Is Psychiatry Evidence Based?, Dr Gøtzsche evaluates the evidence and assumptions undergirding the use of psychiatric drugs, as well as their harms:

Psychiatric drugs cannot cure people, only dampen their symptoms, which come with a lot of harmful effects. And they don’t save people’s lives; they kill people. I have estimated, based on the best science I could find, that psychiatric drugs are the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer.⁵ Perhaps they are not quite that harmful, but there is no doubt that they kill hundreds of thousands of people every year. I have estimated that just one neuroleptic drug, olanzapine (Zyprexa), had killed 200,000 patients up to 2007.⁶ What is particularly saddening is that by far most of these patients should never have been treated with Zyprexa.

Finally, at the end of Chapter 2, he argues that terms used to categorise types of psychiatric drugs (e.g. antidepressants, antipsychotics) are misleading and should be replaced with more accurate descriptors:

1. We should all contribute to changing psychiatry’s seriously misleading narrative.
2. Depression pill is the correct term for an “antidepressant,” as it makes no promises.
3. Major tranquilliser is the correct term for an “antipsychotic,” as this is what the drug does, to patients, healthy volunteers and animals. It may also be called a neuroleptic, which makes no promises.
4. Sedative is the correct term for an “anti-anxiety” drug, as this is what the drug does, to patients, healthy volunteers and animals.
5. Speed on prescription is the correct term for ADHD drugs, as they work like amphetamine, and as some of them are amphetamine.
6. “Mood stabilizer” is like the unicorn. Since such a drug doesn’t exist, the term should not be used.

Visit Peter Gøtzsche’s profile at Mad in America, to keep track of new releases in this book series.

1. Gøtzsche PC. Deadly psychiatry and organised denial. Copenhagen: People’s Press; 2015.
2. Breggin P. The most dangerous thing you will ever do. Mad in America 2020; March 2. https://www.madinamerica.com/2020/03/dangerous-thing-psychiatrist/.
3. Gøtzsche, 2015.
4. Gøtzsche PC. Psychiatry gone astray. 2014; Jan 21. https://davidhealy.org/psychiatry-gone-astray/.
5. Gøtzsche, 2015.
6. Gøtzsche PC. Deadly medicines and organised crime: How big pharma has corrupted health care. London: Radcliffe Publishing; 2013.