Why I built this.
I'm a psychiatrist. I've been in clinical practice for fifteen years. I've spent that time watching patients arrive at appointments holding printouts from various corners of the internet, and most of the printouts haven't been useful. Some were written for clinicians and unreadable without a medical background. Most were written down to a level that took the actual information out. The middle ground (material that respects the reader enough to use real clinical concepts in plain language, reviewed by a board certified clinician with their name on the work) wasn't there. The Shrink Network is what I built to fill that gap.
What the network is.
The Shrink Network is a connected ecosystem of independent mental health properties. Each property has its own scope, its own URL, its own editorial leadership. Together they cover the educational layer (Shrinkopedia, AnxietyResource, DepressionResource, PsychiatryRx, AnxietyResearch, Shrinktionary, shrinkDaily), the application layer (shrinQ, Unstuck, QuitScrolling), the care layer (shrinkMD), and the profession layer (shariqrefai.com, shrinkiatry). The network coordinates the editorial standards, the cross site linking infrastructure, and the medical review (which is mine for all the editorial sites).
What ShrinkNetwork.com specifically does.
This site (shrinknetwork.com) is the network's central explanation. It's not a destination for mental health questions; the editorial sites are. This is the page you arrive at when you want to know what the network is, how the sites fit together, and why this approach exists in the first place. The Start Here page routes you to wherever your question fits. The Network Map shows the four layers. The Knowledge Graph explains the underlying structure. The Why page explains the strategic choices behind the network's design.
How the editorial sites work.
Every editorial entry on every site goes through the same process. The editorial team drafts the entry against current evidence (DSM-5-TR, recent peer reviewed meta analyses, guidance from NIH and NIMH, current treatment guidelines from the relevant specialty societies). The draft comes to me for medical review. I'm in active clinical practice as a board certified psychiatrist. I read every clinical entry before it gets published. If something's wrong, unclear, or claims more certainty than the evidence supports, the entry goes back for revision. The reviewer credit on every entry shows the date of that review and the date of the last source check.
Who I am.
I'm Shariq Refai, MD, MBA. Board certified psychiatrist. Fifteen years of clinical practice. Founder of shrinkMD. Author of Your Mind Is Full of Sh*t, The Workbook, and The Havoc in Your Head. Clinical focus on anxiety, depression, OCD, trauma, treatment resistant cases, and the integration of medication and psychotherapy. NPI 1467680660. ORCID 0009-0009-1090-4373. Board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Full bio at the Medical Review Board page.
Independence.
The editorial sites are published by shrinkMD Publishing. They don't run ads. They don't sell user data. They don't take referral or affiliate revenue. There are no sponsored entries. There's no native advertising disguised as editorial content. shrinkMD (the telepsychiatry practice) is part of the network because it's the care option I founded; entries that reference shrinkMD also reference the other major care options on equal terms. If we ever had a financial relationship that affected content, we'd disclose it. We don't, so we don't.
How to use the network.
If you're not sure where to start, the Start Here page routes you based on what brought you in. If you have a category in mind (Anxiety, Depression, Sleep, Trauma, OCD, Bipolar, ADHD, Eating Disorders, Substance Use), Shrinkopedia's Hubs cover each one. If you want to see how one topic gets covered across the whole network, the Network Clusters page on Shrinkopedia is the explicit cross network landing layer. If you want to read about why this network exists at all, the Why page covers the strategic choices.
Standards.
The full editorial standards live at the standards index (the index of all the standards pages). In short: every clinical entry is reviewed by a board certified psychiatrist (me) before it gets published. Every entry names its sources. Evidence strength gets tagged on a four level scale (Strong, Moderate, Limited, Emerging). Substantive corrections get logged at corrections. AI use is documented at AI use.
If you're in crisis.
The Shrink Network isn't a crisis service. If you're in immediate danger to yourself or someone else, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department. If you're having thoughts of suicide or in significant mental health distress, call or text 988 in the United States. The Crisis help button at the top of every page on this site routes to the crisis routing.
Contact.
For editorial questions or factual corrections about ShrinkNetwork.com, email [email protected]. For corrections on any specific editorial site, email the site directly (each one has its own support email on its About page). I can't respond to personal clinical questions by email. If you need clinical care, the Start Here page routes you to options including shrinkMD plus broader telepsychiatry and in person care.