About this project

What it is, who writes it, and how to correct it.

Purpose

This project exists to provide a citable definition of integrative psychiatry, an explicit account of what the evidence supports, and a stated boundary around what the term should cover.

The gap it addresses is described on the main article. In short: the term is in daily clinical and commercial use, no professional body has defined it, no encyclopedia carries an entry for it, and the pages that currently rank for it are program descriptions of one or two sentences or marketing material without citations. Descriptions of the field therefore vary to the point where two clinicians using the word can mean incompatible things.

Editorial standards

• Every factual claim carries a citation that resolves. Digital object identifiers and PubMed identifiers on this site are checked automatically against Crossref and the National Library of Medicine before each publication. A reference that fails to resolve blocks the release.
• Every statistic carries its data year and its source population. Effect sizes are reported as the source reports them, including confidence intervals where the reader needs them to judge the claim.
• Evidence tiers carry the date they were assigned. Tier assignments are set out in the grading framework. When a tier changes, the change and its date are recorded rather than applied silently.
• Uncertainty is stated as uncertainty. Observational findings are described in observational language. Where the evidence is thin, the page says so and assigns the method to Tier C.
• The definition is versioned. The current text lives at a permanent address with a change log, so a citation to an earlier version stays resolvable.

Who writes it

The project is edited by Ryan Sultan, MD, a board-certified adult and child & adolescent psychiatrist and Columbia-affiliated academic psychiatrist, whose peer-reviewed research covers attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, cannabis use, and child and adolescent psychiatry.

He also directs a fee-for-service integrative psychiatry practice in New York. That is a conflict of interest with respect to this subject matter, and it is stated in full on the disclosures page rather than mentioned in passing.

Contributing editors

At publication this project has one editor. Stating that plainly matters more than the appearance of a panel, and a reference work assembled by a single author should be read with that in mind.

Clinicians and researchers willing to review a section, contest a tier assignment, or take ownership of a topic area are invited to make contact. Named contributors are credited on the page they review, with their affiliation and the date of review, and any contributor conflicts are disclosed alongside the editor’s.

Corrections

Errors of fact are corrected promptly. A correction that changes the meaning of a passage is noted at the foot of the page with its date, rather than made silently. Tier reassignments are recorded in the page history.

To propose a correction, send the page address, the passage at issue, and the citation that supports the change. Correspondence that identifies a genuine error will result in a correction whether or not the correspondent is credited, and credit is given by default unless declined.

What this project does not do

• It does not provide medical advice, and reading it creates no clinician–patient relationship.
• It does not accept advertising, sponsorship, or paid placement.
• It does not carry affiliate links, and it sells nothing.
• It does not maintain a practitioner directory, and it does not refer patients to any practice, including the editor’s.
• It does not certify, accredit, or endorse individual clinicians.

How to cite

The formal definition is versioned separately and should be cited with its version number.