Mark Horowitz, M.D.

Biography

Dr. Mark Horowitz, MBBS, Ph.D., is a Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry in the National Health Service (NHS) in England, Visiting Lecturer in Psychopharmacology at King’s College London, and a resident psychiatrist. 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 in the UK for prescribers on how to safely stop psychiatric drugs and has been endorsed by the College of General Practice in Australia and the Pharmacist 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 written several papers about safe approaches to tapering psychiatric medications including publications in The Lancet Psychiatry, JAMA Psychiatry and Schizophrenia Bulletin. He is an Associate Editor of the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology. He has an interest in rational psychopharmacology and deprescribing psychiatric medication. He has experienced the difficulty of coming off psychiatric medications first hand which has informed much of his work.