60-second Science

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