Dr James Davies (PhD) 💭
@JDaviesPhD
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Dad - Husband - Writer - Assoc Professor of Medical Anthropology & Psychology (Ph.D @UniofOxford). Practicing Psychotherapist (UKCP). Previous NHS. @appgpdd
Uni of Roehampton, London
Joined May 2019
Hi folks, I'm very proud to say that my book, Sedated, is released today! I've done everything within my power to write a book worthy of your time - one that illuminates via interviews, stories & research why our mental health sector is broken & how we may put it right again. 1/5
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'Depression' isn't against you. It rather *works* against you when you fail to engage with it constructively - asking what realisation or change it's demanding, or what it's protesting against. It's only by working with depression (not against it) that you will get through it.
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RT @JDaviesPhD: The BMJ has altered it's original news piece on the recent antidepressant withdrawal study, "to clarify the study’s limitat….
www.bmj.com
Most people do not experience severe withdrawal when discontinuing antidepressants, and clinical guidelines should be updated to reflect this, say the UK authors of the largest review of the evidence...
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RT @JDaviesPhD: Nearly 40% of women have a "mental health condition" says survey. Can't we ditch that language & the ideology it propagates….
www.theguardian.com
Rates are higher in young women as in young men and mental ill health up across age groups, study shows
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RT @RajeevJayadevan: Studies that look at short-term use of antidepressants could underestimate the incidence & severity of withdrawal symp….
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The BMJ has altered it's original news piece on the recent antidepressant withdrawal study, "to clarify the study’s limitations and to add comments from James Davies" as the editor says. - We all appreciate this critical amendment 👇.
www.bmj.com
Most people do not experience severe withdrawal when discontinuing antidepressants, and clinical guidelines should be updated to reflect this, say the UK authors of the largest review of the evidence...
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RT @JDaviesPhD: By reclassifying painful normality as psychiatric abnormality, we’ve created the illusion of a psychiatric epidemic.
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The power & virtue of irreverence 👇.
The Age of Deference is Over: It's just no one told psychiatry. The medical profession is facing a challenge it doesn’t yet understand: people are no longer waiting to be granted a voice-they’re taking one. Most of you will have seen the firestorm online over the new.
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By reclassifying painful normality as psychiatric abnormality, we’ve created the illusion of a psychiatric epidemic.
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From the outset of the SSRI era there has been an effort to downplay or erase the existence of withdrawal. Recent events are just the most recent instantiation.
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RT @JDaviesPhD: We forget that GSK was sued for marketing its antidepressant, Paxil, as “non-habit forming” while knowing it caused severe….
www.theguardian.com
A major lawsuit has been launched against the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline on behalf of a group of people who say they became chronically addicted to an antidepressant drug in the...
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A clever new way to downplay withdrawal? Just invent a bunch of terms to split it into subtypes ('PDNP', 'discontinuation-s,' 'subtype X'. Suddenly, it’s not withdrawal anymore… & hardly anyone has it. Problem solved.🙃.- This is actually happening right now on social media. .
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p.s. this was the same time as companies were coming up with euphemisms like 'discontinuation syndrome' & the 'consensus statement' that withdrawal is 'mild & short-lived' - it was a concerted campaign at the time.
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RT @BeyondPillsAPPG: Chair of Beyond Pills APPG Dr Simon Opher in the Standard today: “Don't believe the lies - antidepressant withdrawal i….
www.standard.co.uk
Many people have difficulties stopping antidepressants. Particularly if they have been taking these drugs for a long time, when they are at risk of suffering severe and long-lasting effects from...
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We forget that GSK was sued for marketing its antidepressant, Paxil, as “non-habit forming” while knowing it caused severe withdrawal. Internal docs revealed GSK tried to bury the issue, with patients suffering as a result. GSK paid millions in settlements
www.theguardian.com
A major lawsuit has been launched against the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline on behalf of a group of people who say they became chronically addicted to an antidepressant drug in the...
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Drug companies, & the Drs working for them, created the term 'Discontinuation Syndrome' as a euphemism for 'withdrawal', as they were worried the term 'withdrawal' would put consumers off, bringing attention to a problem they were keen to downplay. It's really that simple.
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“Nobody as ever questioned me, but going off 80 mg Paxil cold turkey kicked my ass well and good. I felt like I was being jolted with a cattle prod randomly and frequently.”.
www.reddit.com
Explore this post and more from the science community
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"This flawed & misleading paper should at the very least be amended to reflect its clear limitations, with a formal acknowledgement by the authors. I will be writing to the Chief Medical Officer to this effect". - Dr Simon Opher MP.
www.standard.co.uk
Many people have difficulties stopping antidepressants. Particularly if they have been taking these drugs for a long time, when they are at risk of suffering severe and long-lasting effects from...
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JAMA Psychiatry does not request it's editors to publicly disclose any drug company conflicts of interest (COIs), while in 2025 a MedRxiv paper found that 41.7% of JAMA Psychiatry authors had undisclosed industry payments.
www.medrxiv.org
Research Question To what extent do undisclosed financial conflicts of interest (COIs) exist among physician-authors in high-impact US-based psychiatry journals? Study Design Cross-sectional Object...
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