Welcome to
Inner Compass Exchange

Providing insights, guidance, and community for people seeking a way out of the current mental health system

Inner Compass Exchange is a unique peer-to-peer online community, offering support, learning, discussion spaces, private chat, talks, and events on topics related to life beyond psychiatric diagnoses, drugs, and drug withdrawal. It exists to help those looking to step away from the mental health industry with a community at their side—a community comprising individuals from all walks of life and with experiences similar to your own.

Here, you’ll find a space where you can connect, discover, explore, learn, make friends, and build a path forward. By joining, you’ll gain practical tools and find essential support to help you move beyond prescriptions and existing models of psychiatry.

How Inner Compass Exchange can help you, and how we help others

Join the Exchange today for exclusive access to:

• Group- and member-led video support calls and conversations

• Our exclusive “Taper Companion”—a 20-step, self-directed psychiatric drug taper manual written by our founder, Laura Delano

• Discussion spaces devoted to the most relevant challenges we face as we leave the mental health industry, including discussions tailored to different stages of tapering

• Private chat with other members

• Search features to find members based on filters such as drug class

• Our extensive archive of recorded talks, conversations, and events on topics related to life beyond psychiatric diagnoses, drugs, and drug withdrawal

• Free access to any paid virtual public panels or talks hosted outside of the Exchange by Inner Compass Initiative (our parent non-profit organization).

What happens in the Exchange

Members from all over the world come together to share their experiences and insights, support one another, participate in member-led discussions and calls, and draw on resources related to leaving the mental health industry. Through these processes, members gain strength, and hope.

More about the Exchange community

We are people who once turned to the mental health industry for answers. Now, we are building vibrant, purposeful lives beyond psychiatric diagnoses, drugs, and drug withdrawal—and we’re helping each other get there.

While the Exchange interface shares similarities with social media platforms that make it familiar to use, there are important differences: it is completely private and is based on the principles of mutual aid—the voluntary exchange of support, resources, and information between people who have experienced similar struggles and triumphs. The Exchange community is comprised of members with previous or current psychiatric diagnoses and their loved ones. Any medical or mental health practitioner among us is here because of personal experience with taking or coming off psychiatric drugs.

Why the Exchange exists

The mainstream mental health industry has encouraged us to rely only on professionals, making us less attuned to the ways we can support each other. In the past, mutual aid for mental health was challenged by timing, distance, and practical barriers. People wanting to step away from the mental health industry and find others with the same goal struggled to do so. Now, thanks to widespread digital connectivity, this is changing. We provide mutual aid for the digital age.

More about Inner Compass Initiative (ICI)

Inner Compass Exchange is an initiative of ICI, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in the U.S. and serving people worldwide. You can learn more about ICI here. Our mission is to unite people with firsthand experience engaging the mental health industry to chart a new path forward beyond its current limits. ICI receives no grants or institutional support of any kind; all of our revenue comes from Exchange membership fees or from donations made by individuals and families who believe in our mission. To make a tax-deductible donation to ICI, click here.

Please note: We offer scholarships for those who wish to join our community but are not currently in a financial position to do so. To request one, click here.