The Icarus Project and Freedom Center’s 52-page illustrated guide gathers the best information we’ve come across and the most valuable lessons we’ve learned about reducing and coming off psychiatric medication. Based in more than 10 years work in the peer support movement, this Guide is used internationally by individuals, families, professionals, and organizations, and is available a growing number of translations. Includes info on mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, risks, benefits, wellness tools, psychiatric drug withdrawal, information for people staying on their medications, detailed Resource section, and much more. A ‘harm reduction’ approach means not being pro- or anti- medication, but supporting people where they are at to make their own decisions, balancing the risks and benefits involved. Written by Will Hall, with a 55-member health professional Advisory Board providing research assistance and more than 50 collaborators involved in developing and editing. The guide has photographs and art throughout, and a beautiful original cover painting by Jacks McNamara.

Now in a revised and expanded Second Edition.

Note: the guide is Creative Commons copyright and you have advance permission to link, copy, print, and distribute for non-commercial purposes, as long as you don’t

alter it and you credit the source.

Download and read the Guide in English.

Download a printer version, with scrambled pages ready to fold into a booklet (print double sided on legal paper, or send to a shop; booklet assembly instructions here). Download a powerpoint version here.

Download the Audiobook version mp3 here (rt/cntrl-click save as).

Download a European printer version in English, with scrambled pages ready to fold into a booklet (print double sided on A4 paper).

You can also order a bound, color cover edition through bookstores.

Read about the making of the first edition and second edition of the Guide.

Translations

The Guide is available in the following languages, some also with printer versions:

Spanish – Castellano/Español (printer version)

German – Verfügbar Deutsch (printer version)

Greek – Ελληνική

Bosnian – Bosanskom

Danish – Dansk

Dutch – Nederlands

Hebrew – עִברִית (alternate version here)

Croatian – Hrvatski (printer version)

Japanese – 日本で利用可能 (printer version)

Italian – Italiano (printer version)

Thai – ไทย

Chinese – 減害 手冊 脫離精神科藥物

French – Français (printer version)

Norwegian – Norsk

Czech – Čeština

English

For more information on coming off psychiatric medication, please see the www.BeyondMeds.com, the UK website www.ComingOff.com, the Inner Compass Withdrawal Project, and Will Hall’s webpage at www.willhall.net/comingoffmeds.

Article by on “Addressing Non-adherence to Antipsychotic Medication: a Harm-Reduction Approach” in the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. Interview with Laura Delano of the Inner Compass Withdrawal Project on Madness Radio.

Also check out these videos with Will Hall (and this one translated into Czech): and this audio on “Coming Off Medications” from the 2009 Hearing Voices Congress.

