Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry and social justice.

Hello, this is James and welcome to the podcast. And this week I'm delighted to get the chance to chat with Dr Giovanni Farver.

Dr. Farver is a psychiatrist and professor of clinical psychology at the University of Bologna in Italy.

He is also a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine

and biomedical sciences. Since 1992, he has been the editor-in-chief of the

peer-reviewed medical journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic. Giovanni has authored more than 500

scientific papers and is known for researching the adverse effects of antidepressant drugs. In a 1994

editorial, he argued that many of his

fellow psychiatrists were too hesitant to question whether a given psychiatric treatment was more

harmful than it was helpful. Dr. Farver recently released his latest book entitled Discontinuing

Antidepressant Medications, published by Oxford University Press.

The book is designed to be a guide for clinicians who want to help patients withdraw from

antidepressants. I was keen to ask Dr. Farver about the book and to explore some of the concepts,

including novel psychotherapeutic approaches to antidepressant withdrawal.

Dr. Farver, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

To begin with, could I ask you to tell us a little bit about your background?

And how it was in particular, you became interested in issues around the difficulties

that some people have

when they want to stop antidepressant drugs?

Yes.

See, unlike most of the researchers today, I actually evaluate and personally treat quite a number of

patients and I've always been doing that.

...