Deprescribing Education: Medication Tapering Curriculum
A comprehensive, evidence-based curriculum for clinicians learning to safely taper psychiatric medications. Covers neuroadaptation, hyperbolic tapering, SSRI/SNRI/benzodiazepine protocols, and patient communication — built around real clinical scenarios.
Introduction
- Introduction to Deprescribing
Layer 1 — The Foundation
- What Happens at the Receptor — Neuroadaptation and receptor occupancy
- Withdrawal Is Not Relapse — Differentiating withdrawal from relapse
- The Wave-and-Window Pattern — Understanding non-linear recovery
- The Reinstatement Trap — When stopping fails and patients return to medication
Layer 2 — The Protocols
- Hyperbolic Tapering in Practice — Building evidence-based taper schedules
- SSRI Deprescribing — Escitalopram, sertraline, paroxetine, fluoxetine protocols
- SNRI Deprescribing — Venlafaxine and duloxetine tapering
- Benzodiazepine Tapering — The Ashton approach for lorazepam, diazepam, and alprazolam
- Patient Assessment and Readiness — When to taper and when to wait
- Coming Off Completely — The final steps to zero and why the last milligrams matter most
Layer 3 — The Hard Stuff
- Polypharmacy — Sequencing tapers across multiple medications
- Protracted Withdrawal — Managing symptoms months after discontinuation
- The Difficult Conversations — Communicating with patients, families, and colleagues
- Using Data to Guide Decisions — Symptom tracking and objective measures
Each module includes learning objectives, patient scenarios, video lectures from leading deprescribing researchers, clinical pearls, and self-assessment quizzes. Free to access with a TaperCommunity account.
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