Psych Central is a

mental health Mental health is often mistakenly equated with the absence of mental illness. However, mental health refers to a person's overall emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It influences how individuals think, feel, and behave, and how t ...

information and news

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

. Psych Central is overseen by mental health professionals who create and oversee all the content published on the site. The site was created in 1995. The site was named as one of the Internet's 50 Best Websites in 2008 by ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'', and has approximately 6 million unique visitors per month.Psych Central
''

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

'' PsychCentral was acquired by Healthline (

Red Ventures Red Ventures is an American media company that owns and operates brands such as Lonely Planet, The Points Guy, Healthline, and Bankrate. Red Ventures focuses on news, advice, and review websites. The company's corporate headquarters is locate ...

) in August 2020. Former attorney and author, Faye McCray was appointed Editor-In-Chief in 2021.

Features

Consumers are Psych Central's target audience, as the site offers informational articles about mental health, relationships, personality, and helping people better understand themselves.Target Mental Health Concerns for Psych Central Cyberink, ''Inside Health Media'', (November 23, 2011). Prior to its sale to Healthline, Psych Central had over 200 blogs that are written by

psychologists A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how ...

, psychiatrists and people with lived experience, as well as a mental health news bureau that publishes up to five stories per day. One of the more prominent blogs is devoted to celebrity mental health issues. The site has a large collection of mental health and psychology articles that discuss the symptoms and treatments of mental illness, personality, parenting, relationships, and related topic areas.Benedict Care, Say 'Aaah'; Your Health Online; Before You Get On The Virtual Couch, ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', (January 1, 2001). Other features include dozens of tests and screening measures, including an

Attention Deficit Disorder Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and emotional dysregulation that are excessive and pervasive, impairing in multiple con ...

(ADHD),

mania Mania, also known as manic syndrome, is a Psychiatry, psychiatric Abnormality (behavior), behavioral syndrome defined as a state of Abnormality (behavior), abnormally elevated arousal, affect (psychology), affect, and energy level. During a mani ...

and obsessive-compulsive disorder test and a

Narcissistic Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive preoccupation with oneself and one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism, named after the Greek mythological figure ''Narcissus'', has evolv ...

Personality Quiz.

History

Psych Central was founded by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. in 1991. Grohol was a Florida psychology graduate student who began answering mental health questions in numerous mental health Usenet newsgroups, which he turned to after losing a friend to suicide. In 1995, Grohol began a weekly online mental health chat which continued on the Psych Central website. Grohol stated that one of the reasons he founded Psych Central was because he lost his childhood best friend to untreated depression. Darrel Rowland and Catherine Candisky
mental-health system made a few improvements this year
(December 29, 2013)Alain Brunet, Andrea R. Ashbaugh, Christophe F. Herbert
Internet Use in the Aftermath of Trauma
Citing Grohol's own 1995 book, Page 17. Six citations in this book. In 2011, the journal ''

Pediatrics Pediatrics (American English) also spelled paediatrics (British English), is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, Adolescence, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, pediatrics covers many o ...

'' was criticized by Psych Central for publishing a paper on "Facebook depression," which Psych Central called a "made-up term for a phenomenon that doesn't exist." In 2009, a study published in the '' Journal of Neuroscience'' suggested that marijuana could potentially provide relief from the symptoms of PTSD. The research was reviewed by Psych Central.

Online support groups

Before its sale to Healthline, Psych Central had over 250 support groups spread out over two communities: Psych Central Forums and a neurological support community, NeuroTalk. The combined membership of these two communities is over 600,000 members. After its sale, the forums changed their name to My Support Forums and became independent, but are still overseen by Dr. Grohol.

Evaluation and criticism

The journal ''Health and Social Work'' ran an analysis on the quality of online health-related information regarding

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

WebMD WebMD is an American corporation which publishes online news and information about human health and well-being. The WebMD website also includes information about drugs and is an important healthcare information website and the most popular cons ...

scored the highest with a 91 percent endorsement. MedicineNet.com had an 89 percent endorsement rate, and Psych Central's section called "Schizophrenia and Psychosis" had an 88 percent endorsement rate. The journal concluded that all sites examined offered quality information on schizophrenia. The journal ''Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking'' ran an analysis on the quality of online mental health-related information across the 11 most commonly-searched for mental disorders. The researchers found that search engines "regularly returned Web sites that were of good or better quality health information." Psych Central was cited as one of the top two mental health-focused Web sites returning search results for this analysis.Grohol, John; Slimowicz, Joseph; Granda, Rebecca, The quality of mental health information commonly searched for on the Internet; Study, ''Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking'', (April, 2014), Pg. 219. In 2001, the ''

'' cautioned that Psych Central "...is as much a vehicle for self-promotion as it is a consumer guide. roholadvertises his book...He spends less energy doing evaluations of outside resources."

References

External links

*{{Official website American medical websites Psychology organizations based in the United States Mass media companies established in 1995 1995 establishments in the United States Companies based in Newburyport, Massachusetts