Board-certified psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Witt-Doerring discusses his specialized focus on adverse reactions to psychiatric medications and safe de-prescribing, using the high-profile Lindsay Clancy case as a timely illustration. Witt-Doerring, who has worked in clinical practice, for Johnson & Johnson, and at the FDA, argues that conventional psychiatry often oversimplifies mental distress as chemical imbalances requiring indefinite drug treatment. His approach emphasizes common-sense interventions—gradual medication reduction, accountability for diet, physical activity, and lifestyle—helping many patients regain energy and motivation that long-term drugs can suppress.
Witt-Doerring reports that for roughly 80 percent of cases involving anxiety, depression, or insomnia, patients can discontinue medications without major issues. More complex conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia present greater challenges, and some individuals elect to remain on treatment. He notes a growing network of clinicians, including Mark Horowitz in the UK and participants in deprescribing mentorship programs, who share this holistic orientation.
The conversation centered on Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother charged with killing her three young children in early 2023. Initially, many viewed the act as pure evil warranting imprisonment. Witt-Doerring contends the medical record supports a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity due to medication-induced psychosis. After her third child, Clancy experienced postpartum depression and life stresses. Telemedicine providers prescribed Zoloft, an SSRI; she developed severe insomnia, the dose was doubled, symptoms worsened, and it was stopped. She was later placed on Prozac, then Seroquel, and eventually amitriptyline, with the dose increased the day before the tragedy. In a short period she was exposed to approximately 11 medications.
Drug labels explicitly warn that antidepressants can precipitate mania and psychosis. Clancy later reported command auditory hallucinations. Collateral evidence includes text messages in which she described the drugs damaging her brain and making her feel worse, disclosure of intrusive homicidal thoughts to family weeks earlier, and forensic analysis of her computer searches for medication side effects. Family, friends, colleagues, and her nanny described her as a loving mother with no history of violence, substance abuse, or relational breakdown—the typical motives in filicide cases. The prosecution’s theories of psychopathy or “altruistic filicide” appear inconsistent with this background. Witt-Doerring highlights parallel malpractice concerns over continued antidepressant prescribing despite clear worsening.
Hellbound and Down 