Pachankis joined the faculty at the Yale School of Public Health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences in 2013 and received tenure in 2018.
[4] With Mark Hatzenbuehler, he found that the length of time that gay and bisexual men spend in the closet is associated with the degree to which their self-worth is contingent on external sources of approval and status, the so-called “Best Little Boy in the World” hypothesis.
[5] This study also found that investing one's self-worth in external sources of regard was associated with loneliness, negative mood, and dishonesty.
[6] Pachankis has conducted some of the few population-based studies of the closet, finding that the mental health correlates of not being out differ by gender and social support.
[9] Pachankis has been a leader in the LGBT-affirmative psychotherapy movement, having developed one of the only mental health treatments for sexual minority people to have been tested in randomized controlled trials.
[14] Pachankis co-edited the Handbook of Evidence-Based Practice with Sexual and Gender Minorities, which received the Distinguished Book Award from Division 44 of the American Psychological Association.