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Science Quickly

Psychiatry’s playbook is about to get torn up

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.41.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2026

⏱️ 17 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of Science Quickly, we dig into a brewing shake-up inside psychiatry as the American Psychiatric Association considers sweeping changes to the way mental illness is defined and diagnosed. Scientific American’s associate editor Allison Parshall breaks down what the potential changes are, why long-standing diagnostic categories may no longer reflect scientific reality and what these revisions could ultimately mean for patients. Recommended Reading: Psychiatrists plan to overhaul the mental health bible—and change how we define ‘disorder’ E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Kendra Pierre-Louis, Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is your latest project.

0:02.0

It's heavy with information, data and exactly 36 pages of waffle.

0:09.0

But with Acrobat Studio, you can create a PDF space,

0:13.0

an AI-powered workspace that turns documents into summaries and insights

0:17.0

and even generates reports or presentations out of it. So you can cut through the waffle, work smarter and save time.

0:25.1

Do that with Acrobat.

0:27.0

Learn more and try it out on Adobe.com. For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Kendra Pier Lewis, in for Rachel Feldman.

0:52.6

Think of a psychiatric condition, something like attention-deficent hyperactivity disorder,

0:57.7

panic disorder, or anorexia nervosa.

1:00.8

Nowadays, many of us take for granted that a mental health care professional can help determine

1:05.1

if we have one of these conditions.

1:07.4

But how do they make that diagnosis?

1:09.4

It's based in part on guidelines from the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders or the DSM.

1:16.4

It's a book published by the American Psychiatric Association, with the goal of accurately describing recognized mental illnesses.

1:24.0

In many ways, the DSM is considered the quote, Bible of psychiatry.

1:27.4

It's also received decades of criticism, particularly that it doesn't reflect science. In many ways, the DSM is considered the quote Bible of psychiatry.

1:32.4

It's also received decades of criticism, particularly that it doesn't reflect scientific reality.

1:38.3

Last month, the APA announced that it may make a major overhaul to the DSM, which if the proposals come to pass could have significant impacts on how psychological disorders are

1:42.7

categorized and diagnosed.

1:44.6

To learn more about those changes, we spoke with Allison Partial, Associate Editor from Mind and Brain at Siam.

1:50.9

Thanks for joining us today.

1:52.7

Thank you for having me.

...

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