A path for psychiatry to thrive

Abstract

Exciting changes have the potential to reshape the tools used to treat mental illness, promote mental health, and bring this country's too-long fragmented and specialistcentered mental health system closer to delivering on the goals of improving population health, expanding access, and engaging with structural and social determinants. Innovative practices such as task sharing, cross-sector integration, and participatory methods are ready to be mainstreamed into psychiatric professional identity and practice. Local governments have started to adopt these new strategies, perhaps the most prominent recent example being ThriveNYC, a comprehensive attempt to drive mental health improvement. By enabling and partnering with other practitioners in these ways, psychiatrists can reach more people in more places, giving psychiatry an opportunity to evolve and flourish. As psychiatrists, we and our leadership should seize that opportunity and help lead this progress.