PsychWatch Australia is back and it is needed more than ever!

After a 3-year-break from publishing PsychWatch Australia (PWA) is back and we are here to stay. The revamped PWA website includes updated statistics on Australia’s extraordinarily high rates of psychiatric drug use. In coming months more detailed age, state and gender specific statistical detail will be published.

It is more than seven years since PWA’s first blog - 1 in 8 Australians are on antidepressants - Why is the Lucky Country so miserable? - was published (23/4/2019). As detailed on PWA’s home page since then the number of Australians taking antidepressants has grown to nearly one in seven - with 13.9% of all Australian’s dispensed at least one antidepressant prescription from July 2024 to June 2025. Particularly alarming is the massive increase in the number of very young Australians taking mental health medications demonstrated in the graph below.

It is not all bad news. One small positive is that although Australians are still among the world’s highest users of antidepressants, at least the rate of antidepressant use has plateaued (and even fallen ever so slightly from a peak of 14.0% 2021-22).  

Another positive development is that since 2022 the highly questionable promotion of antidepressants as a suicide prevention measure appears to have ceased. As detailed in research led by the PWA editorial team the promotion of antidepressants as a youth suicide prevention measure by ‘expert’ organisations and individuals (most notably Suicide Prevention Australia and prominent Australian depression expert Professor Ian Hickie) ‘may have contributed to increasing antidepressant use, and thereby possibly inadvertently contributed to rising suicide rates among young Australians.’[1]

Fortunately, major organisations now emphasise social determinants, crisis support, safety planning, aftercare and restricting access to lethal means for young Australians diagnosed with depression. Most notably, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) whose leadership had previously promoted antidepressants as a suicide prevention measure, now expressly states that antidepressants are intended to improve depression or anxiety symptoms, not to prevent suicide per se, and acknowledges that SSRIs may increase suicidal ideation in adolescents.[2]

On a less positive note, since April 2023 when we posted our last blog - NHMRC doubles down on 'grossly misleading' claim that the new ADHD Guideline is ‘evidence-based' – no action has been taken by the National Health and Medical Research Council. Despite 4 Corners exposing in March 2026 (nearly 3 years after PWA first revealed it) that the so-called ‘evidence-based’ ADHD national clinical guideline is devoid of quality supporting evidence, the Guideline is still approved by the NHMRC. Ultimately, Albanese Government Health Minister, Mark Butler, is responsible for this debacle. PWA is determined to see that Minister Butler does his job by making sure that the NHMRC does its - so expect updates.

One alarming change since 2023 is that the rate of ADHD diagnosis and prescribing has exploded – no doubt partly fuelled by the Big-Pharma friendly ‘medication first’ recommendations contained in the discredited guideline. In the 2022-23 Financial Year 471,769 Australians were dispensed at least one ADHD medication. By 2024-25 this number has risen to 760,622 Australians.[3] This represented a 53% increase in the per-capita rate in two years.

Since June 2025, preliminary Commonwealth Government data available from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme indicates that total number of ADHD prescriptions dispensed to Australians in the 2025-26 financial year have grown by about another 25%. If this alarming rate of growth continues more that 1 million Australians will take ADHD drugs (primarily Amphetamine like stimulants) between July 2026 and June 2027.

On a more positive note, PWA is encouraged that more courageous, ethical, credible voices from within Australian psychiatry are speaking up. Two relatively young expat Australian psychiatrists making a notable contribution to a less medicalised, more genuinely ‘evidence-based’ approach to mental health are Dr Mark Horowitz (UK) and Dr Josef Witt-Doerring (USA).  Both have developed expertise in the often-difficult process of helping patients taper off psychiatric medications. You can expect to read more about them (and hopefully from them) at PWA in coming months and years.

In addition, PWA is encouraged by the Not Broken Project which ‘advocates for a fundamental shift in how Australia understands and treats mental distress — away from a medication-first model, and toward the social, environmental, and developmental roots of human suffering’. The Not Broken Project is led by a multi-disciplinary steering committee that includes psychiatrists Dr Paul Denborough and PWA contributor Professor Jon Jureidini. Obviously with nearly 5.2 million Australians dispensed at least one mental health medication in 2024-25 the Not Broken Project has a big task in front off it. So does PWA and we will do our very best with the limited resources we have to keep you informed.

As well as the abovementioned issues PWA will also keep you informed about the following:

• Drugging Preschoolers - In the 2025 Financial Year 3,798 preschoolers aged 0 to 4 years were 'medicated' with amphetamines, antipsychotics and/or antidepressants. PWA will be asking the question why does nobody in power seem to care or even notice?

• The ADHD Birthday Lottery - For years we have known that the youngest children in a school classroom are more likely to be 'medicated' for ADHD than their older classmates. PWA will be asking why haven’t educational and medical authorities addressed this anomaly? Read More

• Beware - Here Comes DSM6 - The next edition of the American Psychiatric Association's 'Bible of Psychiatry' is being written now. Will Australian psychiatry continue to compliantly follow America's lead? Read More

• We also intend adding recommended reading, media-watch, and possibly a just4laughs page.

As we have in the past, substantial claims made in a PWA page or blog will be referenced with hyperlinks (where possible) to enable readers to check source documents. PWA is obviously critical of the dominant ‘pill for every ill’ approach to mental health in Australia, however, we welcome dissenting voices. It has been the lack of the contest of ideas that has enabled the highly bio-medicalised approach to dominate. So, if you disagree with anything published by PWA show us where and how we got it wrong, and we will amend, delete, and/or apologise.

All media enquiries, and requests, suggestions from the public should be directed to the PWA Editor Dr Martin Whitely via psychwatchaustralia@gmail.com

[1] Whitely M, Raven M and Jureidini J (2020) Antidepressant Prescribing and Suicide/Self-Harm by Young Australians: Regulatory Warnings, Contradictory Advice, and Long-Term Trends. Front. Psychiatry 11:478. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00478

[2] Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. Suicide: Recognising & responding to risk. In: National Guide to a Preventive Health Assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. RACGP. Accessed 21 July 2026.https://www.racgp.org.au/clinical-resources/clinical-guidelines/key-racgp-guidelines/national-guide/mental-health/suicide-recognising-responding-to-risk

[3] In 2022-23 financial year 232,154 adults and 247,607 Australians minors (aged 0-17 years) were dispensed at least one ADHD prescription. In 2024-25 these numbers had risen to 415,127 Adults and 345,495 children and adolescents (0-17 years).