Dr Mark Horowitz MBBS PhD is Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry in North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT), Visiting Lecturer in Psychopharmacology at King’s College London, and a trainee psychiatrist. He runs a psychiatric drug deprescribing clinic in the NHS.

He has a PhD from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London in the neurobiology of depression and antidepressant action. He is the lead author of the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines, which provides the basis for national guidance from the NHS on how to safely stop psychiatric drugs and has been endorsed by the Royal College of General Practice in Australia, and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in the UK.

He co-authored the recent Royal College of Psychiatrists’ guidance on ‘Stopping Antidepressants’, and his work informed the recent NICE guidelines on safe tapering of psychiatric medications, including antidepressants, benzodiazepines and z-drugs. He has worked with the NHS to develop national guidance for safe deprescribing for clinicians and has been commissioned by Health Education England to prepare a teaching module on how to safely stop antidepressants for the NHS. He has experienced the difficulty of coming off psychiatric medications first hand which has informed much of his work.