Laura Delano’s Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance

Laura Delano’s Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance
by Elisabeth Bennink at Brownstone Institute

“Stay strong & courageous!” This was the message Laura Delano wrote when she signed my copy of Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance (2025) at the Brownstone Institute event in Connecticut on April 23rd.

As a physician, I have spent years helping patients discontinue medication—particularly psychiatric drugs. The process is far more difficult than it should be. I’ve encountered significant barriers: gaps in medical training, institutional resistance, and a clinical culture that rewards prescribing but offers little guidance on how to stop. This void in psychiatric care is not just a clinical inconvenience—it’s a public health issue.

After reading compelling articles by Jeffrey Tucker and Maryanne Demasi, I was eager to explore Delano’s perspective as someone who has lived inside the system. My intuition was right: what she describes in Unshrunk resonated deeply with what I have witnessed both personally and professionally—a system that locks physicians and psychiatrists into rigid protocols favoring long-term medication, while neglecting adverse effects and failing to offer a viable path to true recovery.

Delano’s memoir is both deeply personal and widely relevant. She traces her journey through over a decade of psychiatric treatment—beginning at age 13—highlighting not just her experience, but a system that medicalizes distress, pathologizes adolescence, and discourages critical inquiry. Her eventual path to healing takes place outside the medical establishment, a decision I understand well from my own experience. There are few roadmaps for those seeking alternatives, and Delano’s story powerfully illustrates both the risks and possibilities of forging one’s own way.

Unshrunk is also a broader indictment of modern psychiatry and raises uncomfortable but necessary questions: Why are so many young people being placed on psychiatric drugs? What constitutes informed consent when patients are rarely told how difficult it can be to stop? These questions are especially urgent in light of the findings from the recent MAHA report, which details the scale and consequences of overmedication in psychiatry.

Delano does more than tell her story. She compels us to reconsider the assumptions underpinning psychiatric care today. Unshrunk challenges the medicalization of normal life experiences and makes a compelling case for transparency, education, and patient empowerment. Most importantly, it advocates for real knowledge around psychiatric drug tapering—knowledge that remains disturbingly scarce in mainstream medical practice.

A Story That Resonates

Jeffrey Tucker, chairman of Brownstone Institute, opened the evening with a compelling introduction. Reading eloquently from the first chapter of Unshrunk, he set the tone for what was to come: a powerful narrative about distorted self-perception, ego doubt, and the fundamental question of how we come to know what is true. Delano’s story takes readers deep into the internal world of a teenage girl navigating adolescence in the privileged, yet often stifling, culture of America’s upper class.

When Delano took the stage, she spoke with conviction and clarity. Her voice carried the weight of experience. The story she told was gripping—raw, vulnerable, and unflinchingly honest. I found myself holding my breath at times, struck by how deeply her journey echoed my own thoughts and observations as a physician. But her story is not just her own. It reflects the lived experiences of countless others who have suffered under the weight of psychiatric labels and medications—many of whom never find the words, or the audience, to share what they’ve endured.

What makes Delano’s account so powerful is not only the depth of her suffering but her ability to look back with honesty, insight, and compassion. She examines her years as a psychiatric patient with a clarity that gives voice to many who have remained unheard.

Her journey begins like so many others: the existential doubts, emotional turbulence, and identity struggles of adolescence. But unlike most teens, whose crises resolve with time, Laura was swept into the psychiatric system. What began as therapy sessions soon escalated into psychiatric evaluations, a cascade of diagnoses, and countless prescriptions of psychiatric drugs; often one used to balance the other in a never-ending spiral—ushering in a decade defined by chemical interventions and diagnostic labels.

This isn’t a story of neglect or malpractice. Quite the opposite. Delano received treatment from top-tier psychiatrists at elite institutions, including McLean Hospital, the prestigious teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. She was prescribed the newest medications and followed every medical recommendation. She was the model patient. Yet, instead of improving, her symptoms worsened.

After years of playing the role of the “good patient”—enduring more therapy, more diagnoses, more medications—something finally shifted. She began to question the narrative she had been taught: Was her brain truly “affected” by a chemical imbalance, or had she been misled? Could it be that the very drugs she believed would save her were not the solution but part of the problem?

This question goes to the core of a long-standing and controversial assumption in psychiatry. British psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff, a leading critic of the chemical imbalance theory, co-authored a major 2022 review that found no convincing evidence supporting the idea that depression is caused by low serotonin. While many clinicians are aware of this, the public conversation has lagged behind. In her 2025 book Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth, Moncrieff explores how the idea of depression as a brain disease became accepted dogma, despite the lack of robust scientific support. Her work is a sobering reminder of how medical myths can become deeply embedded, persisting long after their scientific foundations have eroded.

Seeing It in Practice

As a physician specializing in elderly care, I found Laura Delano’s descriptions uncomfortably familiar. During my residency in old-age psychiatry, I became acutely aware of the devastating effects of long-term psychiatric drug use. I witnessed the blank stares, the tremors, the restless pacing—and I began to question: What symptoms were attributable to the original psychiatric condition, and what had emerged as a result of years of medication? Could the two even be disentangled?

Driven by these questions, I began reviewing old paper medical charts of patients who had been institutionalized for decades. I traced their histories back to their first admissions, searching for clues. What had triggered that initial diagnosis and prescription? To my surprise, the presenting issues were often relatively mild, certainly not what one would expect given the severity of their condition years later. This left me with an unsettling thought: Had we actually helped these patients, or had we done harm in the name of treatment?

When I began working in nursing homes in 2013, I was immediately struck by the sheer number of residents on long-term psychiatric medications—and by how profoundly these drugs affected their daily functioning. Often, neither the patients nor their families—and sometimes not even the physicians—recognized the side effects as drug-related. My clinical instincts, shaped by prior experience, made me question whether medication was contributing to their physical decline.

I saw elderly individuals on antidepressants for years after the loss of a spouse—normal grief mistaken for chronic depression. I saw patients who were physically dependent on sleeping pills, drowsy and nodding off all day and struggling with mobility. These patterns repeated over and over. I began spending extensive time with patients, families, and caregivers. I reviewed medical histories, revisited pharmacological literature, and questioned long-held assumptions. Over the years, I helped hundreds of patients taper off medications—psychiatric drugs, opioids, and more.

The results were often remarkable. Patients once labelled as having “suspected dementia” became alert and engaged again. Some recognized their own children for the first time in years. Others, long confined to bed, began to stand and even walk. Not every case was dramatic, but across the board, I saw consistent improvements in quality of life—sometimes subtle, sometimes transformative.

One of the greatest challenges in this work was finding reliable information and mentors. Most of my medical colleagues did not view deprescribing as a clinical priority. Training programs provided limited guidance on tapering, and protocols were either non-existent or overly rigid. 

My Own Journey

I understand the impact of psychiatric drugs not only as a physician but also from personal experience. For years, I struggled with severe back pain. Alongside the usual painkillers and opioids, I was prescribed various combinations of antidepressants, anti-seizure medications, and other drugs—often for extended periods. As a teenager, and later as a medical student, I pursued any intervention that promised relief, trusting that my doctors knew what they were doing.

The side effects of both opioids and psychiatric medications were intense and difficult to manage. Finding a workable balance became a constant struggle. Even when I took lower doses than prescribed, I found it nearly impossible to concentrate—reading even a few pages of a book was a challenge. Over the course of a decade, while completing my medical education, I underwent three back surgeries. During that time, I experienced many of the same symptoms I would later recognize in my patients: cognitive fog, emotional blunting, and physical dependency.

That experience fundamentally shaped how I practiced medicine.

Eventually, I found lasting relief—but not through conventional medical pathways. With distance and reflection, I came to understand that my pain was more complex than I’d realized. It wasn’t just structural. In many ways, it was a physical expression of deeper issues—chronic stress, perfectionism, and emotional strain manifesting in my body.

When I gained some financial independence, my circumstances began to shift. I had the space to examine other aspects of my life and health. I learned to slow down, listen to my body, to relax, look inward, and slowly I started moving more freely. I explored different approaches to healing both physically and emotionally. Ironically, I would later learn that many herniated disc cases have better long-term outcomes without surgery at all.

That realization stayed with me. It deepened my skepticism of quick-fix solutions and reinforced the importance of understanding the whole person—not just the symptoms. It also affirmed what Delano’s story brings into focus: sometimes, the path to recovery lies not in more treatment, but in stepping back, asking different questions, and giving the body and mind space to heal.

The Downward Spiral

In Unshrunk, Laura Delano vividly illustrates how, despite receiving care from top psychiatrists, being prescribed the most advanced medications, and engaging fully in therapy, she slowly drifted further away from herself—from the intelligent, athletic young woman she once was. Over the years, as she dutifully followed their advice, her sense of agency and vitality eroded.

She was first prescribed antidepressants and antipsychotics, which soon disrupted her sleep. To address the insomnia, she was given sleeping pills, which left her groggy during the day. To maintain her academic performance—she had been accepted to Harvard—she was prescribed stimulants. Her eating patterns became chaotic. She developed uncontrollable nighttime binges and experienced significant weight swings. In response, her doctors increased her antidepressant dosage to “smooth things out.”

For a time, she managed to keep up appearances. She excelled academically, competed at a high level in squash, and threw herself into college life. She faithfully discussed her emotional and physical ups and downs with therapists, who offered empathic ears and more pills. Each psychiatrist genuinely believed they were helping her. They had her best interests at heart and followed established protocols. However, no one connected her physical symptoms to the medications they were prescribing. There was minimal discussion of effects and side effects, no attempts at tapering or stopping. Whatever symptoms she reported were simply interpreted as evidence that her psychiatric condition was worsening.

Delano’s experience is a stark example of how a system—despite good intentions and expert credentials—can fail the very people it is designed to help. Her story is not an indictment of individual practitioners, but of a model that too often prioritizes diagnosis and pharmacology over holistic care and critical reflection.

The Label That Changes Everything

The diagnosis Laura Delano received as a teenager would come to shape the course of her life. It colored every interaction with doctors, every decision about treatment, and every assumption about her future. After that first diagnosis—bipolar disorder—a cascade of additional labels followed: depression, borderline personality disorder, eating disorder, alcohol dependence. With each new label came a narrowing of possibility.

Delano and her family were encouraged to adjust their expectations accordingly. A long-term psychiatric prognosis was presented as inevitable—chronic illness, lifelong medication, and a managed existence rather than a hopeful recovery. Medication, they were told, would make it manageable.

Right around the time Laura met her first psychiatrist in the late ’90s, influential child psychiatrist Joseph Biederman—a Harvard Medical School professor and lead researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital—was publishing papers about what he considered a common but underdiagnosed condition: childhood bipolar disorder. This became the label attached to her teenage struggles. His research helped popularize the idea that many children’s behavioral struggles—once seen as developmental or situational—were actually signs of a severe, chronic mental illness.

This became the frame through which Delano’s adolescent experiences were interpreted. In Unshrunk, she cites one of Biederman’s key articles: “Unlike adult bipolar patients, manic children are seldom characterized by euphoric mood. The most common mood disturbance is irritability, with ‘affective storms,’ or prolonged and aggressive temper outbursts.” In this context, what might have once been seen as emotional volatility during a turbulent adolescence was now viewed as pathological.

The implications were enormous. Between 1994 and 2003, diagnoses of childhood bipolar disorder increased fortyfold. Delano became one of the many swept up in this wave—given a serious psychiatric label during a formative period of life, and handed a treatment plan that revolved around lifelong pharmacological management.

What’s most disturbing in retrospect is how unquestioned these labels became. They didn’t just guide treatment; they redefined identity, possibility, and hope. Delano’s memoir shines a light on how powerful a diagnosis can be—not just clinically, but existentially. It is a reminder that names carry weight, and in psychiatry, that weight can be life-altering.

The Epidemic Paradox

During the same years that psychiatric drug use expanded at an unprecedented rate, the number of people disabled by psychiatric diagnoses also rose dramatically. This disturbing trend raises a critical question: if these medications are truly effective, why are we seeing a proportional increase in long-term disability?

This paradox became the driving force behind journalist Robert Whitaker’s groundbreaking book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America (2010). Whitaker began to ask what few in the field were willing to: Could the treatment itself be contributing to the worsening of outcomes?

Through extensive interviews and data analysis, Whitaker uncovered a troubling pattern. Individuals who initially sought help for emotional distress were often diagnosed, prescribed psychiatric medications, and then found themselves unable to work, study, or function as they once had. Instead of regaining stability, many experienced worsening emotional symptoms, increasing apathy, deteriorating physical health, and diminishing life prospects. Each new difficulty was met with escalated treatment—more medications, more diagnoses, and often, lifelong dependency.

Whitaker’s careful documentation and sharp analysis led him to propose that we may be witnessing an iatrogenic epidemic—a situation in which the treatment intended to help is, in some cases, perpetuating or even causing the illness.

This idea resonates strongly with Delano’s story in Unshrunk, and with the experiences of many patients and clinicians who have begun to question the long-term impact of psychiatric drug treatment. Are we unintentionally creating a system that disables rather than heals? And if so, what must change?

The Turning Point

Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic marked a watershed moment for Laura Delano. For the first time, she allowed herself to ask a question that had long lingered unspoken: What would my life have looked like without that first psychiatrist? Without all those pills?

Delano also confronted another reality—her alcohol use had become problematic. Seeking help, she began attending Alcoholics Anonymous. There, she found something she hadn’t experienced in the psychiatric system: mutual support, a sense of equality, and stories of personal transformation that gave her hope. AA’s structure helped her get sober, and in that clarity, she began to consider an even more daunting step—stopping the pills too!

The Challenges of Discontinuation

What followed was a gruelling and poorly supported detox process. Though her psychiatrist agreed to help, he provided little practical guidance. No one warned her of the intense physical and psychological toll that withdrawal could exact after years of medication. She began tapering step by step, decreasing doses over the course of a couple of weeks to months. But without understanding the risks of rapid discontinuation, she experienced a tidal wave of withdrawal symptoms.

Delano describes it with haunting precision:

“So much of the withdrawal experience is unspeakable: there are simply no words in the English language that come close to capturing its otherworldly nature. The experience infused not just my every square inch but all that I could see, hear, taste, smell, touch; all that I believed and valued and thought about. Withdrawal hijacked my reality without my realizing it; it had to, after all, as these drugs altered not just the entire landscape of my brain and body but also my consciousness, my seat of self.” (p. 240)

Despite the intensity of her suffering, she endured. Through sheer determination, she pieced herself back together—finding support outside of psychiatry and holding on to the hope of living a normal life. Only later did she fully realize that what she had experienced wasn’t a relapse of a psychiatric condition, but the physiological consequences of withdrawal. It hadn’t been “the illness returning”—it was the body and brain adjusting to the absence of powerful drugs.

I have seen this same pattern repeatedly in my own practice. Many medical professionals still lack awareness of what psychiatric withdrawal actually looks like. The symptoms—often extreme, prolonged, and debilitating—are frequently misinterpreted as signs of mental illness returning, rather than as the body’s response to chemical disruption. As a result, patients are often remedicated, reinforcing the belief that they cannot function without drugs.

Fortunately, communities of lived experience—particularly online peer-support groups—have developed nuanced knowledge about safe, slow tapering. These groups often recommend an approach known as hyperbolic tapering, where medication is reduced in extremely small increments over long periods, allowing the nervous system time to stabilize at each step. This patient-centred method is beginning to reach medical professionals, but the gap between clinical practice and lived experience remains wide.

Far too often, people trying to discontinue psychiatric drugs are met with disbelief. When they describe their withdrawal symptoms, they’re told, “See how sick you are? You clearly can’t function without medication.”

A New Mission

Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic didn’t just transform Laura Delano’s personal path—it helped spark a broader movement. One of its most enduring legacies is the website Mad in America, a platform where scientific research and personal stories intersect to challenge dominant narratives in psychiatry. Delano began contributing there through a personal blog, sharing her own experience and helping to amplify voices often left out of the conversation.

Over time, her advocacy deepened. Alongside her husband, Cooper Davis—himself someone with lived experience—she co-founded the nonprofit the Inner Compass Initiative, a peer-led organization dedicated to promoting informed choice in mental health care. Their work focuses especially on educating the public and medical professionals about the realities of psychiatric drug withdrawal and the importance of extremely gradual tapering. What began as a deeply personal journey has become a public mission to bring compassion, transparency, and agency back into mental health.

Essential Reading

Unshrunk is a remarkable and urgently necessary book. It deserves wide readership—by patients, doctors, therapists, and policymakers alike. Delano raises uncomfortable but essential questions: What role does the pharmaceutical industry play in shaping treatment guidelines? Why is there so little long-term research into the effects of chronic psychiatric medication use? And why is there such a persistent gap between what patients report experiencing and what the medical system is willing to recognize?

Despite its heavy subject matter, Unshrunk is ultimately a hopeful book. It’s one of those rare memoirs you want to read in a single sitting. Delano makes it clear that recovery—even after years of intensive medication—is possible. Her writing is brave, raw, and luminous with insight. But more than that, the book is a call to action. It urges us to reconsider how we understand mental health, and how often we mistake normal human suffering for pathology.

At a time when psychiatric drug use among children and adolescents continues to rise, Delano’s voice is not just important—it’s essential. Her story gives voice to the many others whose experiences remain silenced or dismissed. “Stay strong & courageous,” she wrote in my copy of her book. That message extends to every reader. Sometimes, true healing requires more courage than we realize.

Laura Delano’s Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance
by Elisabeth Bennink at Brownstone Institute – Daily Economics, Policy, Public Health, Society