Current classification systems treat developmental and adult psychopathologies as separate. However, as risk factors for psychiatric disorders are identified it is increasingly clear that these can lead to multiple outcomes across different developmental stages. Research and classification schemes will therefore in the future need to adopt a lifespan approach to risk.

We would like to draw attention to the fact that the recently published DSM-5 (and also its predecessor, DSM-IV) contains annoying errors that are mainly logical in nature. These mistakes are undoubtedly a result of inadvertence, rather than either conceptual (professional) disagreements between authors/editors or shortage of scientific data for appropriate circumscription of diagnostic categories. The good news is that since these errors are mainly logical ones, they can be recognised and repaired.

Each year in England 33 000 people diagnosed with a serious mental illness (SMI) die from causes that could have been avoided. Our mental-health-specific Atlas of Variation is the first to demonstrate the extent to which these inequalities and inequities affect mortality nationally.

Suicide prevention for people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder warrants an evidence-based approach to service design as well as clinical practice. The issue of personal responsibility (diminished when mental capacity is impaired) contributing to reduction of suicide risk has, arguably, been neglected.

Psychiatry is suffering an enduring crisis in recruitment. In this editorial I discuss the reasons for this that are most pertinent to recruitment from foundation training and also review the Royal College of Psychiatrists' current 5-year plan for recruitment and what else could be done.

There is a lack of consensus over fundamental issues in public mental health in England. A move away from poorly evidenced ‘well-being’ policy approaches is needed. The authors have developed a more inclusive model using the World Health Organization's approach to public mental health. Public mental health policy makers must acknowledge the importance of psychiatry within the field.

Mood instability is common, and an important feature of several psychiatric disorders. We discuss the definition and measurement of mood instability, and review its prevalence, characteristics, neurobiological correlates and clinical implications. We suggest that mood instability has underappreciated transdiagnostic potential as an investigational and therapeutic target.

Psychiatrists are currently ill equipped to exploit the growing interest in public mental health. Training, service infrastructure and organisational links are deficient, which will impede population-based interventions. However, the potential benefits make correcting this worthwhile.

There have been recent calls to abandon the distinction between neurological and psychiatric disorders on philosophical and moral grounds. Crossley and colleagues, in this issue, meta-analyse published structural brain imaging data and prove that they are different after all – or do they?