Editorial Process

Psychology Today

Psychology Today covers an enormous range of topics, with two common denominators: The content is ultimately connected to the workings of mind and body, and it is presented with authority and objectivity.

We want our editorial standards to be transparent and straightforward both for our readers and for our contributors. To that end, here’s an overview of our editorial process.

Editing Standards and Guidelines

Psychology Today is the largest media enterprise devoted to the coverage of human behavior and mental health. We are proud to be a trusted source for clinical and scientific information around the world; we hold this content, and its authors, to the highest standards.

All expert author content is reviewed, edited and fact-checked for accuracy, objectivity and to ascertain that the author has relevant domain expertise. Reference material is written and edited by staff editors. Reference material such as the Diagnosis Dictionary is reviewed by credentialed psychologists (Ph.D.s) or graduate students pursuing doctoral work in the clinical domain.

Online articles that discuss scientific, medical or clinical matters are vetted for clarity as well as accuracy. You will see key ideas and information highlighted at the top. We strive to make translational scientific information easily digestible; we know that our content informs important health and wellness decisions made by readers. Expert authors and staff editors weigh the real-world needs and outcomes of readers when writing about psychological and medical information.

In some instances, it is important to make clear that there exists scientific consensus on a topic. In other instances, it is important to demonstrate competing ideas and emergent information. We flag these topics where relevant.

Each article, whether written by a neuroscientist or an individual with everyday expertise (such as chronicling daily life with a mental health challenge), is read, vetted, and edited by one or more members of our in-house editorial team. The online article is reviewed and edited, indicating that it has passed fact-check standards and is fully accurate, objective, and well-reasoned.

The first reviewing editor is named on the piece, denoted by a “reviewed” badge. The piece will be read by multiple editors over a longer time horizon, often with an eye towards confirming that scientific and clinical information remains up to date. In the interests of clarity and continuity, the name of the first editor to review the post is published, even after the piece undergoes multiple reviews.

References are provided in the body of the text or appended as footnotes.

Content Labeling

We invite domain experts to contribute to the site and the magazine both to deliver information objectively and in some cases to offer their own takeaways. If an author primarily offers an opinion, we label the piece as such.

We also solicit work from authors with lived experience, including, crucially, in the realm of mental illness. These pieces reflect hard-won experience, and are often written in the first person. Because they do not necessarily reflect formal knowledge of a domain, they are labeled “Personal Perspectives.” Personal Perspectives are first-person articles on everyday expertise in topic areas such as anxiety, depression, OCD, and numerous others.

News content is drawn from primary sources and fact-checked for accuracy and objectivity before it is published in the Newsfeed. In some cases, contributing authors will both report the facts and offer a take that draws on their own domain knowledge. In this instance, an opinion piece is considered newsworthy.

The Psychology Today Editorial Team

Kaja Perina is the Editor in Chief of Psychology Today. Prior to joining Psychology Today, she worked at magazines large and small; defunct and very much still alive (RIP Brill's Content; not going anywhere soon: Vogue). Her own writing is anthologized in The Best American Science Writing series and she has served as co-author on studies that are published in peer-reviewed journals. She holds degrees from Vassar College and from Columbia University.

Lybi Ma is the Executive Editor of Psychology Today and has been with the publication since 2000. She has written for, or has edited, publications including Discover, American Health, and CBSHealthwatch.

Gary Drevitch is a Senior Editor at Psychology Today. He has previously been a senior editor at PBS, Time Inc., Scholastic, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, and Parade Publications, and is the former editor-in-chief of Grandparents.com. He has written extensively on parenting, family life, and mental health for magazines and websites including Parents, The Week, AOL, Men’s Health, and Nick Jr.

Abigail Fagan is an Associate Editor at Psychology Today. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester where she majored in cognitive science and minored in English literature. She has a master’s degree from the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University. She has written for various publications including Scientific American, The Cut, and Spectrum. Abigail first joined PT as an intern in the summer of 2017.

Devon Frye is an Associate Editor at Psychology Today. Prior to joining the PT staff, she spent four years at ADDitude magazine, where she reported on ADHD, learning disabilities, and related conditions. She has worked for Country Living and Scholastic and written for Mic, Shoeleather Magazine, and other publications.

Tyler Woods is an Assistant Editor for Psychology Today. He has previously worked as the lead reporter for the online publication Technical.ly Brooklyn, the television show Inside Edition, and the print publication the New Canaan News. He's a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in Political Theory and minored in English.

Hara Estroff Marano is the Editor at Large of Psychology Today and writes the magazine's advice column, “Unconventional Wisdom.” She is the author of A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting, which grew out of the groundbreaking Psychology Today article “A Nation of Wimps.”

Ekua Hagan is an Online Content Editor for Psychology Today. Prior to that, she was a parenting editor for The Walt Disney Company. With over 15 years of editorial experience, she now concentrates on the health and psychology space. She's a graduate of UCLA, where she majored in English.

Jessica Schrader is an Online Content Editor for Psychology Today and a freelance journalist. Previously, she was managing editor at Metro Parent Media Group and an editor for Patch.com. She also contributes to Bustle Digital Group, Crain’s Detroit Business, and other publications.

Davis Sills is an Online Content Editor for Psychology Today and a freelance journalist. She is also an editor, social media consultant, and co-founder of StoryMore Consulting. Her writing has been published by Centennial Media and Aeon magazine. She has also managed the social media presence for individuals and companies, such as Scientific American magazine, OMNI magazine, CrisisGo, Folio Literary Management, and Gotham Ghostwriters.

Vanessa Lancaster is an Online Content Editor for Psychology Today and a freelance content developer and editor. She studied English Composition at San Diego State University and later obtained her master’s in educational psychology at Eastern Michigan University. She has taught psychology courses in both community college and university settings.

Michelle Quirk is an Online Content Editor for Psychology Today and a freelance editor and writer for a variety of publications and clients, with a focus on health and medicine. She has been copyediting articles for the American Journal of Public Health since 2005. Before going freelance, she worked as a writer and editor for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and medical publishing companies.

Clinical Content Editors

Susan McQuillan, MS, RDN, is a registered dietitian-nutritionist, book and cookbook author, and a clinical content editor. She is a former senior editor at Reader's Digest General Books Division and American Health magazine. She has written articles about food, nutrition, lifestyle, and preventative health care, as well as several books, including Breaking the Bonds of Food Addiction, Low-Calorie Dieting for Dummies, and Sesame Street's Let's Cook and B is for Baking. Her work has appeared in Natural Health, Woman's Day, Family Circle, Women's Sports & Fitness, Prevention, Self, Cooking Light, and Country Living magazines

Laura E. Stephens, Ph.D., teaches at St. Francis College in Brooklyn and for Southern New Hampshire College, College of Online and Continuing Education. She is also a clinical content editor. She received a bachelor's in psychology from the University of Hawaii, a bachelor's in engineering from Dartmouth, and a Ph.D. in cognitive, social, and developmental psychology from The New School for Social Research.

Marina Marcus, Ph.D., MPH, is a practicing psychologist as well as a clinical content editor. She received her bachelor's in psychology from the University of California, San Diego, a master's in public health with an emphasis on Global Public Health from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and her doctorate in clinical psychology also at Columbia University. She has previously served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Ethiopia and worked with the World Health Organization on the programmatic development and implementation of the Mental Health Gap Action Programme.

The Expert Author Community

The expert author approach to publishing that made Psychology Today one of the most widely-read magazines in America in the twentieth century debuted online in 2008. Today, in addition to eminent psychologists, we publish scientists, medical doctors, psychotherapists, registered dieticians, and many others with expertise that can improve mental health and physical well-being.

Contributing authors are invited to cover a range of disciplines and topics, many of which are uniquely addressed on PsychologyToday.com.

Contributors are required to adhere to a range of guidelines. Our editorial standards are designed to uphold and enforce editorial standards, to ensure that authors have the requisite subject matter knowledge, and to guarantee that content is presented in an objective manner.

Our guidelines are standard operating procedures for a media enterprise; they also contain elements unique to this platform. Psychology Today asks contributors to abide by additional rules designed to encourage and build our large community of contributors. We provide an internal forum for contributors to seek peer input and to ask questions and seed discussions that will enhance their work and that of the Psychology Today community, as well as the means of self-rating content outlined above.

We accept submissions from individuals with domain expertise, including clinicians, scientists, mental health professionals, and writers. If mastery is demonstrated and content standards are met, a Psychology Today editor will contact the applicant.

We hope that readers will contact us with any questions about content or process that are not addressed above.