About this Research Topic
Today, mental health is regarded as an important aspect of human life in many societies. For example, the British government published the ‘No health without mental health’ policy in 2011, emphasizing the importance of mental health to our wellbeing. Likewise, the Japanese government implemented a new policy to reform people’s working styles to reduce high rates of mental health problems in 2018. Focus on mental health has become more salient since the outbreak of COVID-19. Despite the abovementioned initiatives and global changes, how mental health is perceived across different cultures remains to be examined. This Research Topic was developed to address this global problem.
Although mental health has been widely discussed, the definition and understanding of mental health remain to be refined. This is partly caused by a lack of cross-cultural perspectives on mental health. Moreover, due to the rapid internationalization taking place in the world today, a culturally aware understanding of, and interventions for mental health problems are essential. Accordingly, this Research Topic aims to fill this gap and deepen our understanding of mental health by comparing positive and negative psychological constructs cross-culturally, and discussing how cultures may be related to their similarities and differences. Insights offered in this Research Topic will help inform diverse perspectives on mental health and contribute to constructing a more universal definition of mental health.
We are especially interested in articles which:
• Compare mental health between multiple countries, and discuss how cultures may help explain the differences and similarities
• Examine how culture and/or religion may affect our perception towards mental health and help-seeking
• Evaluate emerging key mental health constructs such as compassion and ikigai cross-culturally
• Compare the effects of emerging mental health interventions such as nature-based therapy or compassion approaches cross-culturally
• Discuss how the definition of mental health should be construed to consider cross-cultural views of mental health
We are interested in various types of manuscripts including original research, systematic reviews, reviews, mini-reviews, policy and practice reviews, perspectives, clinical trials, case reports, community case studies, brief research reports, and general commentaries.
Although mental health has been widely discussed, the definition and understanding of mental health remain to be refined. This is partly caused by a lack of cross-cultural perspectives on mental health. Moreover, due to the rapid internationalization taking place in the world today, a culturally aware understanding of, and interventions for mental health problems are essential. Accordingly, this Research Topic aims to fill this gap and deepen our understanding of mental health by comparing positive and negative psychological constructs cross-culturally, and discussing how cultures may be related to their similarities and differences. Insights offered in this Research Topic will help inform diverse perspectives on mental health and contribute to constructing a more universal definition of mental health.
We are especially interested in articles which:
• Compare mental health between multiple countries, and discuss how cultures may help explain the differences and similarities
• Examine how culture and/or religion may affect our perception towards mental health and help-seeking
• Evaluate emerging key mental health constructs such as compassion and ikigai cross-culturally
• Compare the effects of emerging mental health interventions such as nature-based therapy or compassion approaches cross-culturally
• Discuss how the definition of mental health should be construed to consider cross-cultural views of mental health
We are interested in various types of manuscripts including original research, systematic reviews, reviews, mini-reviews, policy and practice reviews, perspectives, clinical trials, case reports, community case studies, brief research reports, and general commentaries.
Keywords: Mental health; cross-culture; psychiatry; intervention; compassion; religion; ikigai; nature
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
