Oversimplification of the Term Deprescribing: How to Properly Evaluate Treatment

The term "deprescribing" is defined as "the process of tapering, stopping, discontinuing, or withdrawing drugs, with the goal of managing polypharmacy and improving outcomes."¹ However, this term is being increasingly oversimplified.

Joseph F. Goldberg, MD, an expert in psychopharmacology, discusses how to properly evaluate psychiatric treatment. Medicines are not bad though, Goldberg clarifies, which is often the dangerous message that is pushed alongside deprescribing. It is instead a matter of finding the right tools for the right job.

Goldberg wrote a cover article for Psychiatric Times in May 2025 that took a deeper look at the process of deprescribing and its relevance in psychiatry.² He concluded that deprescribing should prioritize patient outcomes, with decisions made collaboratively between clinicians and patients, free from external pressures. His top 4 recommendations include:

1. The field greatly needs more randomized discontinuation trials to better inform pharmacological end points.
2. Practitioners must adopt a more proactively rigorous and continual reassessment of the appropriateness of existing medications before passively represcribing them.
3. The field must reckon with the reality that not all forms of psychopathology are appropriate substrates for pharmacotherapy.
4. Psychiatric providers should be educated early in (and throughout) their careers about both prescribing and deprescribing as purposeful, nonpassive aspects of routine clinical practice.

Dr Goldberg is a clinical professor of psychiatry at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, NY and the immediate-past president of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

References

1. Thompson W, Farrell B. Deprescribing: what is it and what does the evidence tell us? Can J Hosp Pharm. 2013;66(3):201-202.

2. Goldberg JF. Deprescribing: does the term belong in the psychiatric lexicon? Psychiatric Times. 2025;42(5).