Frontier mental health research: psychedelics & drug studies

Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.

13 papers

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Stress Management in Healthy People: A Review and Meta-Analysis

Alberto Chiesa, Alessandro Serretti

MBSR is able to reduce stress levels in healthy people. However, important limitations of the included studies as well as the paucity of evidence about possible specific effects of MBSR in comparison to other nonspecific treatments underline the necessity of further research.

COVID-19 and Mental Health Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions Resilience and Mental Health

Treating PTSD: A Review of Evidence-Based Psychotherapy Interventions

Laura E. Watkins, Kelsey Sprang, Barbara O. Rothbaum

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a chronic, often debilitating mental health disorder that may develop after a traumatic life event. Fortunately, effective psychological treatments for PTSD exist. In 2017, the Veterans Health Administration and Department of Defense (VA/DoD) and the American Psychological Association (APA) each published treatment guidelines for PTSD,…

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research Resilience and Mental Health Traumatic Brain Injury Research

Mental Health as a Complete State: How the Salutogenic Perspective Completes the Picture

Keyes, Corey L. M.
SpringerLink Summary & key facts 2014 274 citations

This chapter explains three ways people think about health. It says the best view — the "complete state" — includes both the lack of disease and the presence of positive mental capacities and functioning. The author reviews studies that support using this complete-state view for mental health and suggests that…

Health, psychology, and well-being Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction Resilience and Mental Health

The Health-Related Quality of Life for Patients with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS)

Michael Falk Hvidberg, Louise Brinth, Anne Vingaard Olesen, Karin Dam Petersen, Lars Holger Ehlers
PLoS ONE Summary & key facts 2015 212 citations

This study measured health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in Danish patients with ME/CFS using the EQ-5D-3L tool and found their scores were much lower than the general population and lower than 20 other conditions. The average (unadjusted) EQ-5D-3L score for the ME/CFS group was 0.47, while the population average was…

Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research Resilience and Mental Health

Meditation and yoga for posttraumatic stress disorder: A meta-analytic review of randomized controlled trials

Autumn M. Gallegos, Hugh F. Crean, Wilfred R. Pigeon, Kathi L. Heffner
Clinical Psychology Review Summary & key facts 2017 178 citations

This paper pooled results from 19 randomized trials with 1,173 adults to see if meditation and yoga change PTSD symptoms. Overall, these mind–body practices were linked to a small-to-medium reduction in PTSD symptoms (effect size = −0.39). The authors found no big differences by type of practice, who was studied,…

Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research Resilience and Mental Health

Writing Technique Across Psychotherapies—From Traditional Expressive Writing to New Positive Psychology Interventions: A Narrative Review

Chiara Ruini, Cristina C. Mortara

Writing Therapy (WT) is defined as a process of investigation about personal thoughts and feelings using the act of writing as an instrument, with the aim of promoting self-healing and personal growth. WT has been integrated in specific psychotherapies with the aim of treating specific mental disorders (PTSD, depression, etc.).…

Identity, Memory, and Therapy Mental Health via Writing Resilience and Mental Health

Narrative meaning making and integration: Toward a better understanding of the way falling ill influences quality of life

Iris D. Hartog, Michael Scherer‐Rath, Renske Kruizinga, Justine E. Netjes, José P.S. Henriques, Pythia T. Nieuwkerk, et al.
Journal of Health Psychology Summary & key facts 2017 68 citations

This article offers a new humanities-based theory about how falling seriously ill can affect a person’s quality of life. The authors combine ideas about contingency (the feeling that life could have been different), narrative identity (how people make life stories), and quality of life to explain how people make meaning…

Identity, Memory, and Therapy Optimism, Hope, and Well-being Resilience and Mental Health

The Enhancement of Natural Resilience in Trauma Interventions

Mark Burton, Andrew A. Cooper, Norah C. Feeny, Lori A. Zoellner

This article says simple daily routines help people feel safer and less anxious by making life more predictable. It reviews research and examples showing that steady schedules (at work, at home, or in families) can protect mental health, while unpredictable schedules or long stretches without structure are linked with worse…

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research Resilience and Mental Health Traumatic Brain Injury Research

The role of guilt in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Konstantin Bub, Miriam J.J. Lommen

This patient leaflet explains that guilt is a common feeling after a traumatic event and can take different forms, such as blaming yourself for what happened, survivor guilt, or guilt about work and home roles. It says these feelings often surface after the first fear and sadness, can be strong,…

Child Abuse and Trauma Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research Resilience and Mental Health

Compassion fatigue in helping professions: a scoping literature review

Amelia Mohd Noor, Dodi Suryana, Engku Mardiah Engku Kamarudin, Noor Banu Mahadir Naidu, Siti Rozaina Kamsani, Priyalatha Govindasamy
BMC Psychology Summary & key facts 2025 11 citations

This scoping review looked at research on compassion fatigue in helping jobs like nursing, counselling, social work, and teaching. The authors found 43 articles and say compassion fatigue is a complex, hard-to-define idea that has been studied most in health care—especially nursing—and that different personal and work factors are linked…

Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout Optimism, Hope, and Well-being Resilience and Mental Health

The correlation between resilience and mental health of adolescents and young adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Luo, Shulai, Hu, Jiangtao, Zhang, Junshuai, et al.
www.frontiersin.org Summary & key facts 2025 9 citations

This study pooled data from 19 observational studies with 17,746 adolescents and young adults (ages 10–25) to measure how resilience and mental health are related. The authors found that higher resilience was linked to fewer negative mental-health signs (correlation r = -0.391) and to stronger positive mental-health outcomes (r =…

Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development Resilience and Mental Health Traumatic Brain Injury Research

Post-pandemic mental health: Understanding the global psychological burden and charting future research priorities

Wei Ding, Yuan Zhang, Min-Zhong Wang, Shu Wang
PubMed Central (PMC) Summary & key facts 2025 4 citations

This review says the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread and lasting mental health problems around the world. It reports higher rates of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, and substance use linked to long periods of isolation, money problems, and grief. The review also looks at who was hit hardest, what makes care…

Resilience and Mental Health
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