At a MAHA Institute event on Monday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans to help people wean off antidepressants. Kennedy is pictured here arriving at another Make America Healthy Again event in November 2025. Rod Lamkey/AP hide caption

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Rod Lamkey/AP

As the federal health department launches a plan to wean patients off antidepressants, mental health advocates and psychiatrists say blaming the United States' mental health crisis on overmedicalization and overprescription of psychiatric medications is an inaccurate portrayal of a complex problem.

"It really is an oversimplification," says Dr. Theresa Miskimen Rivera , president of the American Psychiatric Association.…