To advocate for the highest quality care for patients with psychiatric disorders which include substance use disorders, to represent the profession of psychiatry, and to serve the professional needs of its membership.

The Illinois Psychiatric Society (IPS), founded in 1938, is the state branch of the American Psychiatric Association. Representing over 1000 Illinois psychiatrists. Our mission is to advocate for the highest quality care for patients with psychiatric and substance use disorders. As medical doctors, psychiatrists attend four years of medical school followed by four years of residency training to obtain the highest level of clinical expertise available to diagnose and treat mental disorders.

• IPS members provide patient care in a variety of settings including community clinics, hospitals, academic centers, addiction and rehabilitation programs, private practice, correctional facilities, inpatient units, emergency rooms, intensive outpatient therapy, partial hospitalization programs, schools, and nursing homes.

• We have been leaders in advocating for greater access to care in urban and rural populations and for those with severe mental illness.

• IPS collaborates with other organizations, such as the Illinois State Medical Association and the National Alliance on Mental Illness to spearhead efforts to improve the quality of mental health services.

• Many working committees, including Child Psychiatry, Telepsychiatry, and Access to Care, have focused attention on issues including heroin addiction, safe prescribing, correctional psychiatry, women’s health, access to appropriate medications, ethics, the overuse of emergency rooms for mentally ill patients, and education.