The Shrink Network

Network map

The Shrink Network.

Published May 24, 2026 · Last reviewed July 14, 2026 by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA, FAPA

An interconnected ecosystem of independent mental health properties, organized by function.

Reviewed by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA

I built this network because no single mental health site can do everything well. A clinical encyclopedia and a practical anxiety guide and a medication reference and a research summary and a telepsychiatry practice all have different jobs. Trying to do all of them on one site usually means doing each one poorly. So instead I built each one separately, gave it a clear scope, and connected them.

The network is organized into four functional layers. The Understand layer is the educational content. The Apply layer is the tools and skill building. The Care layer is the actual clinical service. The Profession layer is the long form work I write under my own name and the resources for other clinicians.

Each property in the network is independent. It has its own editorial leadership, its own URL, its own scope. What ties them together is the cross network infrastructure: the Network Clusters at shrinkopedia.com/clusters/, the Continue Learning Across The Network block at the bottom of every entry on the editorial sites, the Network Compass at the top of every entry, and the Start Here page on each site. The Knowledge Graph (more on that below) is the underlying structure that makes the network something other than a directory.

Below is the full map of the network. If you arrived at this page directly without knowing which site you need, the Start Here page is usually a more useful entry point.

Registry

One graph, not twelve.

Calling the Shrink Network an "ecosystem" only means something if the sites can find each other by machine, not by hand. The registry that makes that possible lives here.

/network.json lists every site in the network with its role, its job, its canonical URL, and the location of its own /index.json. Every site in the network publishes an /index.json at its root that lists its canonical pages and the concept IDs those pages cover. With those two files, any site can look up every other page in the network about a given concept and route to it automatically.

Concept IDs are the Shrinktionary slugs. Two competing dictionaries is zero dictionaries, so we picked one. Shrinktionary publishes 314 canonical concepts at concepts.json. shrinkDaily publishes 216 concept objects at /concept/<slug>, and the two overlap on words like working-memory, metacognition, resilience, self-compassion, emotion-regulation, and self-efficacy, each with different IDs and different definitions. That's the collision. The decision: the canonical definition for any concept lives on Shrinktionary and every site references its slug. shrinkDaily keeps the daily cadence, the realms, the pathways, and the frameworks. Its concepts become lessons that carry a canonical_concept field pointing at the Shrinktionary slug. Two graphs is zero graphs, so we run one. The full standard is on the editorial standards page.

Transparency

How each property is set up.

Different mental-health websites serve different purposes, and readers deserve to know what each site actually is before they trust it. The table below sets out, for every property in the Shrink Network, who publishes it, what it does, how it makes money (or doesn't), and whether it creates a clinical relationship with the reader.

Two things are true of every property in the network. First, no property shares user data with any other property. A person reading Shrinkopedia isn't a "user" of shrinkMD, and a shrinkMD patient's chart isn't shared with the editorial sites. Second, only shrinkMD provides medical care. Reading any of the educational sites, using any of the apps, or working through any of the programs doesn't create a doctor-patient relationship.

Property What it does Published / operated by Type Commercial model Doctor,patient relationship?
shrinkMD
shrinkmd.com		 Independent multistate telepsychiatry: evaluations, diagnosis, medication management, ongoing psychiatric care. shrinkMD Health, Inc. Clinical practice Fee-for-service psychiatric care Yes, this is the only property that provides medical care.
Shrinkopedia
shrinkopedia.com		 Encyclopedia-depth explanations of conditions, symptoms, treatments, and psychiatric concepts. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC Editorial site Ad-free, no affiliate revenue No, general education.
Shrinktionary
shrinktionary.com		 Plain-English definitions of mental-health, psychiatry, and medication terms. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC Editorial site Ad-free, no affiliate revenue No, general education.
AnxietyResource
anxietyresource.org		 Practical, plainspoken anxiety education for the general public. State-by-state resource directory. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC Editorial site Ad-free, no affiliate revenue No, general education.
DepressionResource
depressionresource.org		 Long-form depression education for adults, families, and clinicians. Symptoms, types, treatment. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC Editorial site Ad-free, no affiliate revenue No, general education.
AnxietyResearch
anxietyresearch.org		 Peer-reviewed research on anxiety translated into plain language, with the limits of the evidence stated honestly. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC Editorial site Ad-free, no advertising or product sales No, general education.
PsychiatryRx
psychiatryrx.org		 Psychiatrist-reviewed guides to psychiatric and sleep medications, drug-class overviews, and side-by-side comparisons. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC Editorial site Ad-free, no affiliate links No, general education. Not a place to obtain prescriptions.
shrinkDaily
shrinkdaily.com		 One mental-health concept a day, in short plain-language reflections. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC Editorial site Ad-free, no affiliate revenue No, general education.
shrinkiatry
shrinkiatry.com		 Educational writing about the profession of psychiatry: training, practice, telepsychiatry, ethics, access, and the business of care. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC Editorial site Ad-free, no affiliate revenue No, professional commentary and education.
shrinQ®
shrinq.com		 Educational patterns and self-guided modules for overthinking, rumination, and burnout. Not therapy. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC. shrinQ® is a registered trademark of Shariq Refai (U.S. Reg. No. 8,189,949). Educational program Educational program No, education, not therapy.
Unstuck
beunstuck.app		 Free wellness app for moments of overwhelm. Grounding, structured reflection, small next steps. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC Wellness application Free application. Data kept local when possible. No, wellness tool, not a medical device.
QuitScrolling
quitscrolling.app		 Attention application designed to reduce compulsive phone use through intentional friction and behavioral design. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC Wellness application Application. Privacy-first design. No, wellness tool, not a medical or therapeutic product.
Shariq Refai, MD
shariqrefai.com		 Personal site of Shariq Refai, MD, MBA: biography, publications, essays, speaking, media, and disclosures. Shariq Refai, MD, personally Personal / professional site Personal site. No advertising. No, personal writing and identity.
The Shrink Network
shrinknetwork.com		 The network hub. Explains what each property does and routes readers to the right one. shrinkMD Publishing, LLC Directory / transparency layer Ad-free directory. No affiliate revenue on any outbound link. No, this site sells nothing and doesn't provide care.

Founder relationship: every property in the network was founded, created, or medically reviewed by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA, FAPA. Where Dr. Refai has a financial interest in an outcome, that interest is disclosed plainly on the page where it appears. shrinkMD® and shrinQ® are registered trademarks of Shariq Refai. Other Shrink Network brand names and logos are trademarks of their respective operators.

Understand

Understand.

The Understand layer is the educational backbone of the network. Six sites cover the territory from different angles. Each one has its own scope. Together they cover the encyclopedia, the practical layers for the two most common categories (anxiety and depression), the medication specific layer, the research evidence layer, and the short definitions layer.

If you're trying to figure out what something is, what's happening to you, or how a treatment works, the Understand layer is where you start.

Apply

Apply.

Understanding what's happening matters. So does what you do with the understanding. The Apply layer is the skill building and pattern recognition side of the network. Three sites cover the territory that doesn't fit cleanly into the encyclopedia or the practical guides: the overthinking loops, the days you can't get started, the attention and dopamine pulls that drain the rest.

These aren't replacements for therapy. They're the spaces where the day to day work of mental health happens between clinical visits.

Care

Care.

The Care layer is the clinical service. shrinkMD® is the telepsychiatry practice I founded. It's a separate company with its own clinicians and its own clinical workflow. The other sites in the network are educational; shrinkMD is the place where actual care happens.

Profession

Profession.

The Profession layer is where I write under my own name and where I publish work about the field itself. shariqrefai.com hosts long-form essays on psychiatry, anxiety, depression, treatment resistance, and the practical realities of clinical work. shrinkiatry maps how the profession actually works: the twelve-room Psychiatry Operating Room, a Decoder that answers questions patients actually ask (why appointments feel short, why some psychiatrists don't take insurance), and 35+ downloadable clinician resources.

The Profession layer is separate from the educational and clinical layers because the audience is different. Patients and the general public read the editorial sites. Clinicians read shrinkiatry. Anyone interested in the long-form thinking reads shariqrefai.com.

shariqrefai.com shariqrefai.com

Long form essays on psychiatry, anxiety, depression, and recovery. My personal writing under my own name.

Popular entry points

Read essays →