About Shrinkopedia.

What this site is, why I built it, and how the editorial review actually works.

Written by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA. Updated June 23, 2026.

Why I built Shrinkopedia.

I'm a psychiatrist. I've been in clinical practice for fifteen years. Over those years I've watched a lot of patients arrive at appointments holding printouts from various corners of the internet, and most of those printouts haven't been useful. Some were too clinical to read without a medical background. Most were written down to a level that took the actual information out.

There's a real gap in the middle. Material that respects you enough to use the actual clinical concepts, but writes them in plain language. Material that says when the science is settled and when it isn't. Material with a clinician's name on it as the person who reviewed the work. That gap is what Shrinkopedia exists to fill.

I think understanding what's happening to you is part of treatment. People who can name what they're going through, who know the basic biology and the basic evidence, who can ask their own questions when they're in front of a clinician, tend to do better in care. That's been my consistent experience for fifteen years. So we built a site for that.

What Shrinkopedia is.

Shrinkopedia is a reference. Each entry covers one topic carefully. There's a quick view at the top that summarizes the key points in a few bullets. Below that is the deeper explanation, the common questions that come up about the topic, and the sources we used. Every entry has my review on the record before it gets published, and every entry shows the date of that review and the date of the last source check.

The site has four content collections. Conditions covers the diagnoses you'd see in a clinical setting (generalized anxiety, panic disorder, major depression, OCD, and so on). Symptoms covers the actual experiences inside those diagnoses (chest tightness, racing thoughts, anhedonia, brain fog, hopelessness, and the rest). Treatments covers what works (CBT, SSRIs, exposure therapy, behavioral activation, ECT, and others). Terms is the glossary for the vocabulary you'll run into across the rest of the site.

Above the collections, three larger structures organize the encyclopedia. Hubs are the clinical landing pages for major categories: Anxiety, Depression, Sleep, Trauma, OCD, Bipolar, ADHD, Eating Disorders, and Substance Use. Atlas is the visual map showing how the concepts connect on a single page. Network Clusters at /clusters/ show how a topic gets covered across the entire Shrink Network.

What Shrinkopedia isn't.

Shrinkopedia isn't a clinic. It's not a therapy app. It's not a place to get a diagnosis or a prescription. Reading an encyclopedia entry isn't the same as having an evaluation with a clinician who knows your specific situation.

If you want short definitions, Shrinktionary covers those. If you want medication specifics, PsychiatryRx is where the medication content lives. Practical day to day anxiety guidance is at AnxietyResource. Practical depression guidance is at DepressionResource. If you want telepsychiatry care, that's shrinkMD.

The site also isn't a community platform. We don't take user submissions, user comments, or personal stories. The value of an encyclopedia depends on the editorial review staying intact end to end, so the publishing process stays with people whose names are on the work.

How Shrinkopedia gets built.

Every entry goes through the same process. We pick topics based on three things: how common the condition or treatment is, how much people are searching for the information, and where the biggest gaps are in what's already available online. A draft then gets researched against current evidence. DSM-5-TR for diagnostic criteria. Recent meta analyses and systematic reviews for treatment evidence. Guidance from the NIH and NIMH. Current treatment guidelines from the relevant specialty societies (APA for psychiatric conditions, ACOG for postpartum, AACAP for adolescent presentations, AAFP for primary care, and so on).

Once the draft is formatted into our entry template, it comes to me for clinical review. I'm in active practice and I'm the reviewer of record on every entry. If something's wrong, unclear, or claims more certainty than the evidence supports, the entry goes back for revision. I read it again before it gets published.

After publication, entries get reviewed again on a schedule. Higher impact entries more often. Foundational entries less often. When something changes in the field (a new FDA approval, a new black box warning, an updated guideline from a major society), affected entries move to the front of the queue.

The full editorial process lives at Editorial Standards. The evidence framework lives at Evidence Methodology. When we make a correction, it gets logged at Corrections. How we use AI tools (and how we don't) lives at AI Use.

Who builds Shrinkopedia.

I'm Shariq Refai, MD, MBA. I'm a board certified psychiatrist with fifteen years of clinical practice. I founded shrinkMD, an independent multistate telepsychiatry practice. I wrote three books on mental health: Your Mind Is Full of Sh*t, The Workbook, and The Havoc in Your Head. My clinical focus is on anxiety, depression, OCD, trauma, treatment resistant cases, and the integration of medication and psychotherapy.

For people who want to verify the credentials: NPI 1467680660. ORCID 0009-0009-1090-4373. Board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. The full bio is on the Medical Review Board page.

There's an editorial team behind the scenes too. Researchers who draft entries before clinical review. Copy editors who finalize the prose. Their names and roles are on the Editorial Team page. But every clinical entry has my name on it as the reviewer, because that's how I keep what gets published accurate. I think a medical encyclopedia ought to tell you who reviewed it.

Independence.

Shrinkopedia is published by shrinkMD Publishing. We don't run ads. We don't sell user data. We don't take referral or affiliate revenue of any kind. There are no sponsored entries. There's no native advertising in the editorial content. No industry sponsorship.

When an entry mentions shrinkMD as a care option, it's because shrinkMD is one valid telepsychiatry option for the conditions the entry covers. The entry will also name the other major care options and present them on the same terms. If Shrinkopedia were recommending any specific provider for reasons that weren't editorial, we'd have to disclose that under our Disclosures policy. We don't, so we don't.

Where Shrinkopedia sits in the Shrink Network.

Shrinkopedia is the clinical encyclopedia in a connected network of independent mental health properties. Each property covers a different layer of mental health from a different angle.

For understanding the categories and the science. Shrinkopedia (this site, the clinical encyclopedia), Shrinktionary (short definitions), AnxietyResource (practical anxiety), DepressionResource (practical depression), AnxietyResearch (evidence summaries), PsychiatryRx (medication specifics), ShrinkDaily (one evidence-based concept a day).

For applying what you've learned. shrinQ (pattern recognition for overthinking and rumination), Unstuck (skill building for the days you can't get started), QuitScrolling (attention and dopamine).

For care. shrinkMD (telepsychiatry).

For perspective. shariqrefai.com (my long form essays).

Each site is independent. Each has its own editorial leadership and its own scope. What ties them together is the infrastructure that runs across the network: the Network Clusters, the Continue Learning blocks at the bottom of every entry, the Network Compass at the top, and the Start Here page on each site. The point of all that is so wherever you arrive in the network, the path to the next thing you need is short.

Standards we hold ourselves to.

The full editorial standards are at Editorial Standards. In short:

• Every clinical entry gets reviewed by a board certified psychiatrist (me) before it's published. The reviewer's name, credentials, and review date are on every entry.
• Every entry names its sources. Sources get weighted. Peer reviewed primary research, meta analyses and systematic reviews, and clinical practice guidelines from specialty societies get the most weight. News articles, opinion pieces, and patient experience content don't get used as primary sources.
• When the science is unsettled, the entry says so. We tag evidence strength on four levels. Strong is multiple high quality trials with replicated findings. Moderate is consistent findings from smaller or shorter trials. Limited is small trials or only observational data. Emerging is early stage research that's been hypothesized but not yet replicated.
• When we make a mistake, we fix it publicly. The Corrections page logs every substantive correction with the date, the location, and what changed. We don't log minor copy edits. We do log clinical content changes.
• We use AI tools to assist with research organization, drafting, and editing. We don't use AI to publish without human review. The AI Use page documents how AI is and isn't used in the editorial workflow.

How to use Shrinkopedia.

There are several ways into the site, depending on what brought you here.

• If you're not sure where to start, the Start Here page routes you based on what you came in with. A symptom. A condition. A medication you were just prescribed. A need for care. A question about how the categories relate to each other.
• If you want the visual map of how mental health concepts connect, open the Atlas.
• If you've got a category in mind (Anxiety, Depression, Sleep, Trauma, OCD, Bipolar, ADHD, Eating Disorders, Substance Use), the Hubs cover each one in depth.
• If you want to see how one topic gets covered across the whole network, the Network Clusters collect every site's angle on the topic in one place.
• If you already know the specific definition or condition you want, the Symptoms, Conditions, Treatments, and Terms collections are alphabetical and searchable.

At the bottom of every entry, the Knowledge Path shows a five step walk through related entries. The Continue Learning Across The Network block shows which other sites in the network cover the same topic. The Network Compass at the top of every entry tells you at a glance where the entry sits in the broader network.

If you're in crisis.

Shrinkopedia 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 you're in significant mental health distress, call or text 988 in the United States. That's the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. It's free, confidential, and available 24/7. Trained counselors are on the other end of the line.

If you're outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has a directory of crisis services by country at iasp.info.

Contact.

For editorial questions, factual corrections, and press inquiries: [email protected].

If you've found a factual error in an entry, email us with the entry URL and the specific text that's wrong. We process substantive corrections within seven days and log them on the Corrections page.

I can't respond to personal clinical questions by email. We can't give individual medical advice through the contact form. If you need clinical care, the Start Here page routes you to options including shrinkMD, plus broader telepsychiatry and in person care resources by state.