Psychological science has been trying to understand what exactly causes mental illness, such as depression, anxiety, or eating disorders. Different theories assume that symptoms arise from past experiences in interaction with biological risk factors, and use this as guidance for treatment.

A new trend says that we should move away from finding the underlying cause and rather explain disorders by its interacting symptoms. But is this indeed the way to go?

This is the question that Inga Marie Freund, Arnoud Arntz, Renée Visser, and Merel Kindt at the Amsterdam Emotional Memory Lab located at the University of Amsterdam, have been puzzling about. Together they are critically assessing the role of emotional memory in mental health conditions.

Read their original article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2022.104154