Editorial Standards

ShrinkDaily is built like a reference, not a blog, and the editorial process reflects that. Every concept is a canonical knowledge object that passes the same pipeline before it's treated as final: idea, writing, editorial review, evidence review, relationship review, and medical review under the direction of Shariq Refai, MD, MBA, a board-certified psychiatrist. Nothing is published as canonical until it has been through that sequence.

Voice

Plain, calm, and clear. We write the way a careful clinician talks: in real sentences, with contractions, without hype, and without fear-based marketing. We explain the mechanism before we suggest a step, because understanding is what makes a step stick. If a paragraph sounds like an advertisement, it gets rewritten.

Review cycle

Nothing here is written once and left alone. Every page on this site is reviewed on a quarterly cycle, under the direction of Shariq Refai, MD, MBA. Each concept page shows the date it was first published and the date it was last reviewed, so you can see for yourself how current it's rather than taking our word for it.

A review isn't a formality. Each quarter we check that the evidence still holds and that our honest evidence label is still the right one, we re-read the clinical language for anything that has drifted toward advice, we confirm that the crisis resources and helpline numbers are still correct, we check that the legal and safety pages still reflect current law and current practice, and we repair links that have gone stale across the network. When the evidence moves, the page moves with it. If something turns out to be wrong, we change it and we say so.

Clinical boundaries

This is education, not diagnosis. We use careful language such as may, can, and often, and we never tell a reader they have a condition. When a concept touches something clinically sensitive, it carries an expanded disclaimer and a direct link to crisis resources. The line between learning about the mind and treating a person is one we hold on every page.

One canonical truth

Each concept exists once and is referenced everywhere else. That's the core editorial rule, and it has a practical payoff: a correction made in one place improves the entire site at once. There are no near-duplicate articles drifting apart over time, because there's only ever one version of a concept to maintain.

How concepts connect

Relationship review is its own step. Before a concept is final, we check that it links to the right related concepts, sits in the right realm and library, and routes to the right places across the network. The graph is part of the content, so we edit the connections with the same care as the words.

Corrections

If we get something wrong, we fix the canonical object and the change flows everywhere it's referenced. We treat corrections as routine maintenance of a living system, not as something to hide. Accuracy over time matters more than being polished on day one.

On the use of AI

The standard here is human authorship and human judgment. Concepts are written and reviewed to read as the work of a named psychiatrist, in his voice, and held to the evidence and clinical standards on this page. Tools may assist with drafting and formatting, but the responsibility for what a concept says, and whether it's safe and accurate, is human.

Last reviewed July 13, 2026 by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA. We review every page on this site each quarter, including the legal and safety pages.