This is the final issue of Mental Health and Social Inclusion (MHSI) for 2025 and thanks to our publishers Emerald, we have another “bumper” issue for readers. There are 18 papers in this issue. As ever we have our usual range of papers from across the globe with a range of research methodologies, from surveys to autoethnography and a range of topics from servant leadership to Suez. There is something in this issue for everyone.
We have previously published a series of accounts by Freda Gonot-Schoupinsky based on positive autoethnography. These have provided unique insights into the background and research of leading scholars in the field of positive psychology. This field has been dominated by quantitative approaches, so these papers are a powerful antidote to this trend and are also in keeping with the ambitions of Positive Psychology version 3.0. The current paper focusses on Professor René Proyer. René is a leading authority on the connection between play, mental health and well-being. He suggests that even by just reflecting on “[…] playful moments (this) can increase happiness and alleviate depression.” He further explains that “[…] by seeking out and creating playful situations, we can embrace playfulness as adults.” This is something for all of us to think about. This series has been one of the most interesting and successful we have had in the journal, and we are grateful to Freda for coming up with the idea and publishing in MHSI.
Staying with the theme of autoethnography, we have two further accounts that fit into this approach. The first is by Steven Hall. Steven shows how trauma has been passed onto him over three generations of his family. His grandfather developed post-traumatic stress disorder following his involvement in First World War. His mother’s wartime experiences led to her also experiencing trauma. Her trauma was passed onto Steven, the author of this paper. This has echoes of the famous poem by Philip Larkin about how our parents “messed us up” because they were “messed up” themselves. The second autoethnographic account was from Victoria Claire the sculptor. She shared her experiences of working with Fine Art students. As someone who has profound sight loss, Victoria has developed a method of putting students “in her shoes” and helping them perceive the world from the perspective of a person with sight loss. Her own progressive sight loss has led Victoria to develop what she calls a “sixth sense”, which she describes are a “[…] deeper awareness of the self through sensory and introspective practices.” In this way she suggests “[…] blindness can be an asset rather than a limitation.” Victoria’s sculptures show her amazing creative talent. Her writing is destined to be equally inspiring and influential.
Professor Abdel-Khalek, an influential Egyptian professor of psychology, has three papers in this issue. The first is a study of over 10,000 Egyptian university students. This paper showed how a short scale with only five items, could measure subjective well-being. In a second paper he reports on a survey of 1,579 students who completed the Arabic big five personality inventory and a self-rating scale of religiosity. For men the main predictors of religiosity were conscientiousness and agreeableness. It was the same for women with the addition of low neuroticism. In the third paper Professor Abdel-Khalek looked at associations between Love of Life and affect in 480 undergraduates. Love of Life was found to be more associated with positive affect scales than negative affect scales.
Given the proximity of the UK to France, we do not receive as many articles from France as we might wish. There is of course a potential language barrier. We were therefore delighted to receive a paper looking at regional inequalities in France, which affect what services are provided for people with mental health problems. The authors of the paper, Kaur and Narula, are however based in India. There is of course nothing to stop researchers from some parts of the world, looking at statistical records from other countries and writing about them. We had a similar paper on services in the Philippines, written by Jordanian researchers. Kaur and Narula found regional disparities, however whether this message gets through to French policy makers is a topic for another paper.
Hasan Batmaz and colleagues conducted a survey of 309 participants looking at the relationship between religiosity and psychological adjustment and how this was impacted by the effects of social media addiction and loneliness. They found that loneliness increases psychological adjustment through social media addiction.
Antony Sigalas presents an account of his work in North London over a 20-year period with the local Greek-speaking minority. His paper highlights many of the problems in working with minority communities and stresses the need for cultural competence. He has worked with first, second and third generation migrant groups. In the paper he shares his clinical insights with three illustrative clinical cases.
Work with young people featured in two papers. Ruckika Ranwa and Richa Arora present the results of interviews with 40 youth participants in Dubai. While most research has looked at the stigma experienced by parents of adult children experiencing mental health problems, this study turns that idea “on its head.” Here the researchers wanted to see how families affected the stigma felt by their children. The fact that families were reluctant to allow their children to disclose that they had mental health problems, or to even talk about them, led to self-stigmatisation in their offspring. It was this sort of negative attitude that may have influenced the work on expressed emotion, first expounded by British researchers, that parents exhibited expressed emotion towards their adult offspring who then experienced relapses of their illness, especially negative comments and over-involvement. Another paper looked at adolescent dating violence and abuse (ADVA) and was examined in a study by Gillian Kirkman, Dominic Willmott and Daniel Boduszek. The authors argued that this issue needs to be tackled in schools. They state that ADVA can lead to self-harm, depression, anxiety, PTSD and suicidal ideation.
An issue of concern to both younger and older groups is that of online dating. Kalliopi Tzani and colleagues looked at online dating in four countries. They wanted to examine the effects on well-being and if online dating increased the likelihood of individuals then forming long-term relationships. They found no consistent evidence for either outcome. Online dating does not necessarily lead to establishing stable romantic relationships, though clearly it works for some people.
Amelia Rizzo from Italy and colleagues from Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, conducted a literature review on emotional freedom techniques (EFT). Their review suggested that EFT can help improve occupational wellbeing. Another paper from Mohammed Asadul Islam from Malaysia and Baogui Xin from China also looked at mental health and work performance. They used bibliometric analysis. Most of the published research came from the USA, the UK and Australia. Their work highlights the importance of looking at the issue of mental health in the workplace.
A Polish study by Dawid Storman and colleagues looked at peer-to-peer comments on two online forums, one for people with depression, the other for anxiety. They analysed 494 posts for depression and 360 for anxiety. They coded these posts and found three main themes. Firstly, people sought and shared information on medication. Secondly, they shared experiences which helped build a sense of hope and community. Thirdly, many of the posts involved expressing emotions, especially negative emotions.
The mental health impact of cancer was examined in a study by Aneri Shah and colleagues from India. Almost 200 women with cancer took part in the study. Of these some 113 had breast cancer, while 84 women had other types of cancer. Women with breast cancer reported perceived changes in their appearance, which affected their confidence levels. It also affected their physical relationships with their partners. Another South Asian study by Raneesha De Silva and colleagues in Sri Lanka conducted interviews with 15 transgender and non-gender conforming individuals. Four main themes emerged from their research. These were jealousy and competition, authentic expression, being othered and shunned and conditional acceptance. This research is one of the first to look at resilience in this minority population in a South Asian context.
The final paper in this issue is from Daryl Mahon. Daryl looked at the issue of servant leadership in an Irish social care organisation. This specific approach to leadership was first articulated as far back as 1970, with the leader’s goal being to serve others. Daryl interviewed eight people in this organisation. His findings suggested that servant leadership helped employees feel safer in their work. It is not a model that the editors have come across much in organisations they have worked in.
Eighteen papers to end the year and to bring Volume 29 to a close. We have published a total of 76 papers this year, making this year another record year for Mental Health and Social Inclusion. This total represents about 30%–40% of the papers we are now receiving for the journal. It does however mean that Julie and I have to reject more papers than we can accept. There are no signs that mental health problems are reducing across the globe. There will continue to be a need to develop more effective mental health services, which have become staff rather than facility intensive, at least in the UK. Our journal will continue to publish papers from people with lived experience, alongside more empirical work. Julie and I wish our readers all the best for 2026.
Professor Jerome Carson Editor-in-Chief
Dr Julie Prescott Editor
