Withdrawal Problems and Informed Consent

Since neuroleptics are extremely spellbinding, during or more likely after withdrawal the individual will have to face a variety of persistent or permanent adverse drug effects that went unnoticed during months and years under the influence of the drugs. Many former psychiatric patients feel betrayed by the doctors who inflicted these drugs on them, 

Chapter 15 describes how to withdraw from psychiatric drugs. 

In addition, numerous life-threatening adverse reactions have come to the forefront with the newer atypicals, such as hypertension cardiovascular disease, including stroke in the elderly obesity elevated serum cholesterol elevated blood sugar diabetes and pancreatitis. Finally, there is compelling new evidence linking neuroleptic use to premature death. 

All of the neuroleptics are profoundly medication spellbinding (chapter 1), rendering the user unable to perceive the damage being done to his or her brain, mind, and body. Because of this, the neuroleptics readily lend themselves to the creation of iatrogenic denial and helplessness, in which the doctor uses drug-induced brain damage and dysfunction to produce a more docile, less troublesome patient. 

Euphoria as well as apathy can result from frontal lobe damage and dysfunction (Bradley et ah, 1991). 

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