Reflection by Rajitha White, CORE-BD Student Network Member
Advancing the science and practice of mood disorders is hard work. ISBD 2025 in Chiba reminded me why we keep going and how we can do it better. Over three days at Makuhari Messe, about 700 delegates met to test ideas against data and lived experience, with a shared focus on faster translation to care.
The program spanned therapeutics, mechanisms, and service design, but the consistent message was humility and partnership. People with lived experience were present as experts in the room, not just stakeholders. Two sessions changed how I will work: Minami Kinouchi modelled lived experience as expertise in practice, and Devika Bhushan’s keynote showed how courageous disclosure can shift systems and reduce stigma. We need to listen differently when knowledge is lived, not just learned.
Accessibility mattered. Real-time translation ran in all rooms, widening who could speak and be heard. That is not a nice extra. It changes the conversation and who gets included in it. There was also real momentum in circadian-informed care: new Task Force outputs on chronobiology and light therapy move the field from interesting mechanisms to pragmatic guidance clinicians can use right now. That shift matters for patients cycling through care without targeted options.
This was my first international meeting at this scale. The value was in the hallways as much as the halls: meeting peers, trading methods, getting blunt feedback, and making new friends who will hold me to higher standards. A personal milestone was presenting my poster on the lived experience of anxiety in bipolar disorder. Sharing this work in that setting, and engaging with clinicians, researchers, and lived-experience leaders, was validating and clarifying. It sharpened my next steps and connected me with collaborators who care about anxiety as a driver of course and burden in bipolar disorder.
If you could not attend, the abstract publication is open access and worth a read (https://doi.org/10.1111/bdi.70055). Start there, follow up with authors, and keep the momentum going. See you in Vancouver for ISBD 2026 with stronger, more actionable work.
