Medical disclaimer, scope, and use
Please read this before you begin shrinQ.
What shrinQ is
shrinQ is a paid, self-guided educational program. Its content is informed by evidence-based psychological and psychiatric principles, and it's organized as a structured system for understanding and working with everyday overthinking, anxiety, mental noise, and self-defeating patterns. It's designed to be worked through at your own pace.
What shrinQ is not
shrinQ is not therapy, and it's not a psychiatrist's treatment program. It doesn't provide medical advice, a diagnosis, or treatment for any condition. It isn't crisis support, and it isn't a substitute for care from a licensed medical or mental-health professional.
Using shrinQ doesn't create a doctor-patient relationship, a clinician-patient relationship, or any professional treatment relationship with Dr. Shariq Refai, with shrinkMD, or with anyone affiliated with them. The program is general education made available to the public. It isn't individualized care, and it can't be, because it can't know your history, your circumstances, or your specific situation.
Scope and limitations
This material doesn't constitute the practice of medicine or psychology in any jurisdiction. No therapeutic, diagnostic, or clinical outcomes are stated or implied. The content is general in nature and doesn't account for individual medical or psychological circumstances, which are required for any clinical decision-making. It isn't directed toward any individual in any specific state or jurisdiction for the purpose of providing medical or psychiatric guidance. No physician-patient relationship is formed or established through use of this material in any jurisdiction. Any reference to services, organizations, or platforms is incidental and isn't intended as advertising, solicitation, or endorsement.
This material shouldn't be used to delay or avoid medical or psychiatric evaluation when symptoms are severe, persistent, worsening, or unclear. The examples and exercises in this program are educational illustrations, not prescribed interventions.
About the examples in this program
The patient examples throughout shrinQ are composite illustrations. They're based on common patterns seen in clinical practice, and they've been substantially modified, combined, and fictionalized. They don't depict any specific individual, and any resemblance to a real person is coincidental. Dr. Refai's clinical background is described to give context for the program's perspective, not to establish a treatment relationship with you and not to offer you individualized medical guidance.
Individual results vary
Individual responses to educational material like this vary, and no specific outcome, improvement, or result is promised or guaranteed. Some people notice changes quickly. For others it takes longer, and for some, a program isn't enough on its own. None of that is a failure of the reader or of the program. It's the ordinary range of how this work goes.
When to seek professional care
shrinQ is built for everyday overthinking and anxiety. It isn't built to manage a diagnosed or suspected psychiatric condition on its own. Consider working with a licensed clinician if your symptoms are getting worse, aren't improving despite steady effort, are interfering with your work, sleep, relationships, or eating, feel constant rather than occasional, or involve escalating use of alcohol or other substances.
New, sudden, or physically intense symptoms, especially anything involving your heart, your breathing, your balance, or your level of consciousness, should be evaluated by a doctor before they're treated as anxiety. If you have or suspect a condition such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, an eating disorder, a substance use disorder, or any condition involving a loss of contact with reality, please work with a qualified clinician.
If you are in crisis
If you're in immediate distress, if you feel unsafe, or if you're having thoughts of harming yourself, please don't wait. In the United States, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (opens in a new tab), or call 911 for emergency services. You can also reach the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, and the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. If you're outside the United States, please look up your local crisis line. There's always someone you can talk to.
Medications and existing care
If you're currently in treatment or taking medication for a mental-health condition, please don't change anything about your care based on what you read in this program. Always consult your own physician or licensed mental-health professional before adjusting medication, stopping treatment, or changing a routine that interacts with your care. shrinQ is meant to sit alongside professional care, never to replace it.
See also: Terms of purchase, International readers.