New Nonprofit ARETÉ Science Seeks To Reset US Mental Health System

A new organization led by one of the nations most prominent psychiatrists is calling for a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. mental health system, arguing that decades-old frameworks have failed millions of Americans.

ARETÉ Science, founded by Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, former president of the American Psychiatric Association and chair of psychiatry at Columbia University, officially launched Monday with a five-year plan to realign mental health care with modern brain science. The nonprofits mission, Lieberman said, is to confront the “systemic, scientific, and moral failures” that have left serious mental illness underdiagnosed, undertreated, and overlooked.

“Were still treating 21st-century brain disorders with 20th-century frameworks,” Lieberman said. “Despite extraordinary advances in neuroscience and genetics, most people with serious mental illness are misdiagnosed, under-treated, or ignored altogether. Its time to rethink the entire system.”

ARETÉs launch is anchored by two key documents. The Challenge outlines how fragmented federal policy, outdated diagnostic models, and institutional dysfunction have stalled innovation and left nearly 70 million Americans with serious mental illness without adequate care. It frames the issue as both a scientific failure and a civil rights crisis, echoing former National Institute of Mental Health Director Dr. Tom Insels warning: “Our house is on fire, and youre telling us about the chemistry of the paint. The gap between what we know and what we do is unacceptable.”

A companion report, The Plan, sets forth a three-stage strategy for reform. The first phase focuses on shifting public perception through targeted media and editorial campaigns. The second aims to push policy and legislative reforms in financing and care infrastructure. The final stage envisions a new, integrated system of psychiatric care built on current neuroscience.

“This is not about incremental reform,” Lieberman said. “Its about ending a long-neglected injustice — and rebuilding our system on the foundation of what science actually tells us.”

ARETÉ Science is inviting policymakers, researchers, and journalists to join the dialogue as it begins its campaign, modeled in part on the activism that reshaped AIDS policy decades ago.