Mental health problems are increasingly visible in society. They severely affect the quality of life and daily functioning of the individuals concerned, and are also associated with high costs for society. There are several reasons for this upward trend, such as an increasingly complex society, economic and political concerns, and an ageing population. Mental healthcare is currently insufficient for many.

When trying to understand or improve mental health, various disciplines approach the issue through their own theoretical and methodological lens. Even within a single discipline, such as psychology, knowledge of and expertise on mental health is fragmented. This fragmentation is one of the key challenges in research and healthcare in this field and beyond . We advocate an interdisciplinary approach.

Mental health is currently most commonly approached from a disciplinary viewpoint. For example, clinical psychologists mostly focus on diagnosing and treating mental disorders in individuals, generally applying psychotherapy. Within clinical psychology, expertise is typically centred around a specific disorder (e.g., depression or PTSD). For behavioural psychologists, the emphasis is on how mental health is influenced by learned behaviours and cognitive patterns. Medical psychologists, in turn, focus on the interconnection between mental and physical health (e.g., pain, cancer, or diabetes). For social psychologists and sociologists, the key focus is on how people in different social groups make sense of their mental health, how they label it, and what kinds of rituals are created around it. Public health researchers, for their part, take a population-level approach, concerned with identifying risk and protective factors, reducing stigma, and promoting mental health through prevention strategies and policies aimed at reducing health inequalities. Cultural psychologists and anthropologists may consider how cultural practices shape wellbeing. And the list goes on… This disciplinary divergence, while providing essential insights into specific topics, often leads to siloed perspectives.

For a comprehensive understanding of mental health, what we need is an interdisciplinary approach. This would not only provide much more effective ways to tackle the prevention, early detection, and treatment of mental health issues, but would also ensure that we do not lose sight of how these processes are shaped by policies and politics. An interdisciplinary approach invites us to move toward an understanding of mental health as shaped by interwoven biological, psychological, social, and cultural dynamics, all acting together in complex and often unpredictable ways. By bringing disciplines together, it may be possible to develop integrated prevention, diagnostic, and treatment plans, and to make them more personalised.

How can we bring different disciplines together? We are part of the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) sector plan on the topic of mental illness. As such, we are committed to structurally increasing an interdisciplinary mindset in mental health research, practice, and policy (see our website). Our aim is to bring together diverse—and at times contradictory—perspectives on mental health. This requires participating in regular meetings on diverse topics, soliciting feedback from different perspectives, taking time to understand each other’s viewpoints and approaches, and feeling a drive to connect. It is in this process of convening—one that is not without friction—that we can strive toward a more nuanced and effective understanding of mental health and consequently find more effective methods to address mental health issues for individuals and society.

Let’s take the example of aggression. A cognitive psychologist might be interested in examining how growing up in a neighbourhood marked by physical aggression influences how individuals interpret social cues and develop aggressive behavioural patterns. Parallel to this, a sociologist studying the same context might instead focus on how violence is socialised—how norms, relationships, and structures shape the meanings and practices of aggression within communities. In our group, both lenses coexist. Sharing these perspectives might, for instance, encourage clinical psychologists to avoid pathologising behaviours that may be adaptive—or even socially sanctioned—within specific contexts. By combining subjective processes (such as individual interpretations of aggression) with collective ones (such as societal rituals, peer dynamics, and interpersonal relationships), we generate a more nuanced understanding of violence.

Mental health is a co-production shaped by biological, psychological, social, and cultural forces. As such, the integration of diverse viewpoints from within and across disciplines is essential for adequate prevention and treatment of mental health issues.

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