Katinka lost a year of her life to antidepressants and other depression medications
Katinka Blackford Newman
Katinka is founder and CEO of Antidepressant Risks. She is a London based qualified life coach specialising in mental fitness as well as a journalist, published author and BBC trained documentary film-maker. Her interest in this subject began in 2012 when she nearly lost her life because of an adverse reaction to an antidepressant. She was hospitalised and prescribed more drugs which made her extremely ill.
After a year she was lucky to be taken off all the drugs and made a full recovery.
She researched the side effects of antidepressants and interviewed some of the world’s leading experts. Her best-selling book ‘The Pill That Steals Lives’ has been featured on Radio 5 Live, BBC London, Good Morning Britain, the Victoria Derbyshire Show and in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Daily Mail and The British Journal of Psychiatry.
In 2017 her research was made into a BBC Panorama programme 'A Prescription for Murder' which investigated whether an antidepressant could be the cause of one of the worst mass killings of this century.
She has written articles highlighting the risks of antidepressants including:
She has also made an 8-minute film about her story: A Family's Journey to Discover the Side Effects of Antidepressants
For life coaching enquiries please visit kbnlifecoaching.co.uk.
Dr Anne Guy was Secretariat Coordinator for Beyond Pills All Party Parliamentary Group
Dr Anne Guy
Dr Anne Guy (PsychD) UKCP Reg is a psychotherapist in private practice in the UK, having previously worked as a university lecturer.
She is:
the Prescribed Drug Dependence lead for the Beyond Pills Alliance and has been the secretariat co-ordinator for the Beyond Pills All-Party Parliamentary Group (previously for Prescribed Drug Dependence) when convened in the last three parliaments
a member of the Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry
an associate member of the Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal
lead editor for the “Guidance for Psychological Therapists: Enabling Conversations with Clients Taking or Withdrawing from Psychiatric Drugs” created in collaboration with leading UK therapy organisations and academics
has co-authored articles on patients’ and therapists’ experiences of psychiatric drug withdrawal, and reports for the APPG describing current and potential service models for supporting prescribed drug dependence in the UK
a founder member of the Lived and professional Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) for Prescribed Drug Dependence, convened to connect people with relevant experience to NHS staff interested in understanding what patients need.
Prior to training as a therapist, Anne worked as a senior manager in financial services with a focus on process design and improvement.
Professor Healy has written over 150 peer reviewed articles and 20 books on antidepressants
Professor David Healy
David Healy is a psychopharmacologist, psychiatrist, scientist and author. His main areas of research are the contribution of antidepressants to suicide, the conflict of interest between pharmaceutical companies and academic medicine, and the history of pharmacology.
Healy has written more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, 200 other articles, and 20 books, including 'The Antidepressant Era', 'The Creation of Psychopharmacology', 'The Psychopharmacologists Volumes 1–3', 'Let Them Eat Prozac' and 'Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disorder'.
Healy has been involved as an expert witness in homicide and suicide trials involving psychotropic drugs, and has brought concerns about some medications to the attention of drug regulators. He has also said that pharmaceutical companies sell drugs by marketing diseases and co-opting academic opinion-leaders.
Linked to this, he set up RxISK.org, a prescription drug safety website to help people weigh the benefits and side effects of any prescription drug.
David's website: davidhealy.org
Sarah's brother Jon killed himself days after taking citalopram
Sarah Culshaw
Sarah writes about her brother Jon’s passing in 2018 on the home page (see here) and it is for him and his memory that she wants to affect change and raise awareness about the dangers of antidepressants.
Jon was a highly regarded lawyer running the Asian office of a global law firm - he had just been promoted to Global Managing Partner and was due to return to the UK with this new position.
Sarah was 30 minutes away from landing in Hong Kong to see Jon when she received the news that he had taken his own life a few days after starting the antidepressant citalopram.
After two and a half years of healing, and grief and trauma therapy, Sarah is determined to help bring attention to the terrible potential dangers of antidepressants and how quickly tragedy can strike. She feels strongly that GPs need to have a far better understanding of what ‘akathisia’ (an adverse reaction to antidepressants) is and how it manifests. She also feels that GPs and psychiatrists have a duty to warn all patients when prescribing antidepressants about the potential risks. Sarah also feels that those who took their own life following an adverse drug reaction, ADR, should have their cause of death recorded as ADR and not suicide. How can it be suicide when one is not in their own mind?
Sarah runs her own company in the West End and lives in North London with her partner, two boys, dog and cat. She and Jon grew up in Lancashire with their loving parents and she studied psychology at Newcastle University.
Katie is passionate about spreading awareness about the risks of antidepressants
Katie Hughes
Katie has joined the team as Social Media Manager. She holds a masters degree in Public Health, and a has a background in marketing and suicide prevention.
She also works for The OLLIE Foundation, a Hertforshire based suicide prevention charity and is passionate about building collaborative links between the two organisations.
Katie has successfully led a range of initiatives including awareness campaigns, youth engagement programs, digital outreach strategies, and community-based workshops and is excited to support the growth of Antidepressant Risks through impactful social media engagement.
Our Team
Professor Joanna Moncrieff
Joanna Moncrieff is a Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at University College London, and works as a consultant psychiatrist in the NHS in London. She researchers and writes about the over-use and misrepresentation of psychiatric drugs and about the history, politics and philosophy of psychiatry more generally. She has collaborated on government-funded research into how to help people stop antidepressants. She is a co-founder and Chair-person of the Critical Psychiatry Network. She is author of numerous scientific papers and several books about psychiatric drugs including A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs Second edition (PCCS Books, 2020), The Bitterest Pills: The Troubling Story of Antipsychotic Drugs (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and The Myth of the Chemical Cure (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Her website is joannamoncrieff.com, and her Twitter handle is @joannamoncrieff.
Dr Chris van Tulleken
Dr Chris van Tulleken is an infectious diseases doctor at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London. He trained at Oxford and has a PhD in molecular virology from University College London where he is an Associate Professor. With his identical twin brother Xand, who is also a doctor, Chris has hosted many television programmes including 'Operation Ouch', 'Medicine Men Go Wild', and 'Trust Me, I'm a Doctor' alongside Dr Michael Mosley. In 2016, Chris featured in the BBC documentary ‘The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs’, where he took over part of a GP surgery to explore alternative treatments to prescription drugs. The two-part series was a response to the rising numbers of patients being prescribed drugs. Chris is also the author of 'Ultra-Processed People'.
Dr Mark Horowitz
Dr Mark Horowitz is a world-leading psychiatrist and Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry at North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) and an Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at UCL. He manages a Psychotropic Drug Deprescribing Clinic at NELFT and holds a PhD in the neurobiology of depression and antidepressants from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience at King’s College London.
As an Associate Editor of the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology, he co-authored the Royal College of Psychiatry's guidance on ‘Stopping Antidepressants,’ which has influenced recent NICE guidelines on the safe tapering of psychiatric medications. His publications on safe tapering approaches have appeared in The Lancet Psychiatry, JAMA Psychiatry, and Schizophrenia Bulletin.
Dr Sami Timimi
Sami Timimi has been a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist since 1997 and is also an experienced Psychotherapist. He qualified as a doctor from Dundee University in 1988 and became a Member of the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1992, achieving Fellowship in 2012. He has been a Visiting Professor of Child Psychiatry and Mental Health Improvement at the University of Lincoln, UK, for many years.
Sami has published over 130 articles and a number of chapters on subjects including childhood, psychotherapy, behavioural disorders, and cross-cultural psychiatry. He has authored five books, including "Pathological Child Psychiatry and the Medicalization of Childhood," co-edited four books, such as "Liberatory Psychiatry: Philosophy, Politics and Mental Health" with Carl Cohen, and co-authored two others, including "The Myth of Autism: Medicalising Men’s and Boys’ Social and Emotional Competence" with Neil Gardiner and Brian McCabe. His latest book, "Insane Medicine: How the Mental Health Industry Creates Damaging Treatment Traps and How You Can Escape Them," is available in paperback, or serialised form on the Mad in America website.
Professor Peter Gøtzsche
Professor Peter C Gøtzsche is a specialist in internal medicine and a Master of Science in biology and chemistry. Peter is the founder of the Institute for Scientific Freedom, a non-profit organisation that promotes evidence-based medicine and scientific integrity. He is also an expert witness in lawsuits against drug companies and health professionals and has the film and interview channel Broken Medical Science with filmmaker Janus Bang. Peter is professor emeritus of Clinical Research Design and Analysis. With about 80 others, he started The Cochrane Collaboration in 1993 and established The Nordic Cochrane Centre the same year. Peter has published over 100 papers in in the five most prestigious medical journals, and his scientific works have been cited over 190,000 times. Peter is an author of several freely available books, e.g. “Is psychiatry a crime against mankind?”.
Professor John Read
Professor John Read worked as a Clinical Psychologist and mental health services manager in the UK and USA for nearly 20 years before joining the University of Auckland in 1994, where he served until 2013. He has directed Clinical Psychology graduate programs at both the University of Auckland and the University of Liverpool, and is now based at the University of East London.
Currently, John is Chair of the International Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal and a Board Member of the Hearing Voices Network England. In 2022, he was recognized among Stanford University's top 2% most cited researchers globally and became a Life Member of the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis (ISPS). He has also been the Editor of ISPS's journal Psychosis for 14 years.
Our Supporters
Carrie Clark
Carrie Clark is a writer and researcher focusing on prescribed psychiatric drug harm. In 2023, she experienced akathisia and a host of debilitating withdrawal symptoms after discontinuing the antidepressant Sertraline. You can follow her on X, @cwestonclark.
She is the founder of Healix, an organisation that provides advocacy to people experiencing harm from psychiatric drugs. Healix empowers harmed patients with the knowledge and support they need to campaign for better healthcare and to protect future generations of patients from prescribed psychiatric drug harm. Follow Healix on X, @HealixUK.
Iain Mitchell
Video Editor for Antidepressant Risks
Over the past three decades, Ian has worked as a lead editor across a wide spectrum of genres — from long-form documentaries and clever factual formats to commercials, music promos, and comedy-drama hybrids. His editing credits include work for the BBC, Channel 4, Netflix, Amazon and numerous independent production houses, with a strong focus on projects that reveal something unexpected about the world.
From the time he was five until he was nineteen, his mother’s life was punctuated by four nervous breakdowns. Each one ended in her being taken to psychiatric wards that felt like something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—sterile corridors, locked doors. Over the years, she was prescribed an ever-changing cocktail of pills for her depression. Watching her disappear behind those medications left him with a quiet, stubborn fear—one that has kept him from ever touching antidepressants.
Meleah Gibson
Meleah Gibson is a Seattle-based artist, lighting designer, and co-founder of the Seattle Creative Arts Center (SCAC), a vibrant community hub she created alongside her husband, musician Chris Gibson. With a background in dance and painting, Meleah has been a driving force in fostering creativity and collaboration in Seattle’s arts scene. Her work is deeply influenced by her personal experiences and commitment to expressive, healing-centered spaces. She and Chris share two daughters, Charlie and Nina, and continue to live and create in the Ballard neighborhood.
Meleah is also a passionate mental health advocate who speaks openly about her 25-year struggle with SSRI-induced alcohol dependence. Prescribed Paroxetine in 1999, she experienced memory loss and a progressive reliance on alcohol that she attributes to the long-term effects of the medication. After a determined 2.5-year process of withdrawal and recovery, Meleah now uses her platform to raise awareness of the risks associated with psychiatric medications, especially for women. Through storytelling, art, and community engagement, she aims to empower others to seek informed, holistic alternatives to mental health challenges.
Jessie Drouin
Jessie Drouin is an advocate, activist, mentor, and coach who brings passion, lived experience, and empathy to the forefront of her mental health work. After personally experiencing psychiatric mistreatment and the harms of antidepressant medications, Jessie has made it her mission to guide others through informed consent and help them understand their rights. With a strong belief in justice and transparency, she raises awareness about the risks of psychiatric drugs and supports those navigating similar paths.
Jessie is also a dedicated health advocate who promotes holistic wellness and the power of natural, unprocessed foods. Her background spans restaurant management, the film industry, and volunteer work with animals—reflecting her deep compassion, work ethic, and love for nature. Jessie’s curiosity drives her to continually explore the connections between psychology, spirituality, and the human experience.
Laura Turner
Laura is a passionate campaigner about the risks and side effects of psychiatric medication, after she was prescribed an antidepressant off-label for neuropathic pain and developed akathisia. Her decline was sharp and led to a suicide attempt in which she fractured multiple bones. She was then detained and force-medicated for four months in psychiatric hospitals. She has made a full recovery from akathisia after being given 14 different drugs—many against her will—for a host of misdiagnoses.
Her full story serves as a powerful reminder of the extent of devastation this condition can wreak on someone’s life, but it is also an eye-opening account of how extreme adversity can give rise to an unwavering strength and determination to rebuild not only her own body and life, but also the lives of thousands of others.
Following her own experience, she retrained in hypnotherapy, energy psychology, and trauma therapies. With the knowledge gained from her own healing journey, she now aims to help others recover and rebuild their lives—not only from psychiatric drug harm, but from a host of other physical and mental health complaints.
Laura has openly shared her story across the media and plans to write a book documenting her journey. Her flame burns brightly as a voice to empower others, reminding them that recovery is within their reach.
Will Allan
Will has lived experience of psychiatric drug harm. He's an advocate for informed consent and highlighting the effects and risks of psychiatric drugs.