The safety of discontinuing psychiatric medication really depends on the particular medication and your reaction to it. Paxil, and a few other SSRI's (largly perscribed for anxiety and depression) are biologically addictive and in some cases cause dramatic withdrawall symptoms (not to be confused with the reason you were put on it in the first place). With these drugs it is important to discontinue use VERY gradually over a long period of time (6-8 weeks at least). The following are excellent sites with more information on this:
http://www.benzo.org.uk/healy.htm (speciffic to SSRIs)
http://www.freedom-center.org/info/upcomingevents.html#supportgroup (an decent resource and example of peer-support led discontinuation)
http://www.theicarusproject.net/ (has good information)
As for scientific opinion, the above links should provide access to what is there. Unfortunately the pharmaceutical industry does NOT want you to go off your meds, and while its probably a good idea to have your friendly psychiatrist supervise your discontinuation, the APA gets ALOT of money from big companies to tell people to continue there medication.