The Lancet Psychiatry in conversation with

Are you mental health literate? Listen to experts discuss what this might mean and how standards of knowledge about mental health could and should be improved globally.

People with psychosis experience poor physical as well as mental health and infringement of their human rights in several spheres. How is this being addressed through legal frameworks? Which interventions most effectively support recovery of people with psychosis?

Click here to read the full series:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(26)00156-2/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(26)00033-7/fulltext

What does the science actually say about cannabis and mental health? In this episode of In Conversation With, hosted by Dustin Graham (Deputy Editor, The Lancet Psychiatry), three leading researchers unpack a landmark collection of papers on cannabis and mental health published in the journal.

Dr. Jack Wilson (University of Sydney) breaks down a comprehensive meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials, revealing striking evidence gaps. Dr. Wayne Hall (University of Queensland) synthesises multiple forms of evidence, exploring cannabis's complex relationship with psychosis, anxiety, and depression. Professor Tom Freeman (University of Bath) zooms out to examine international cannabis policy, from decriminalisation to commercial legalisation, and what those shifts mean for psychiatric outcomes.

Together, they tackle the tension between public demand, commercial interests, and a rapidly evolving evidence base — and what policymakers and clinicians urgently need to know.

Read the full collection at thelancet.com

A Health Policy piece in our April issue by Tasdik Hasan and co-authors titled:  Co-designing a Bangla Mental Health Sign Language Bank in Bangladesh

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(25)00334-7/fulltext

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How can you stop traumatic flashbacks in just one session?

Click here to read the full article: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(25)00397-9/fulltext

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Can personality disorder treatments be reduced to just a few months?

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How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect mental health? 

Now that some years have passed since the pandemic's height, we can learn more from synthesising all the evidence about its shorter and longer term effects. 

In this episode, Ethelreda Nakimuli and Peter Jones talk about two new papers that gather the past 5 years of work on the pandemic and mental health and policy approaches. They talk about the different effects of the pandemic on different groups' mental health, how mental health care was affected, and about what we can learn for future crises about different types of public health response to the pandemic.

Click here to read the full articles:

• https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(25)00247-0 /fulltext

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Body dissatisfaction has been rising among adolescents in recent years, and so have symptoms and diagnoses of mental disorders. To help us know what to do about increasing youth mental ill health, we need better understandings of what is driving it, but causal factors are hard to pin down. 

In this episode, Ilaria Costantini and Francesca Solmi talk about their new study that uses a longitudinal twin study to disentangle the genetic and environmental factors in the associations between adolescent body dissatisfaction and later symptoms of eating disorder and depression. We think about why body dissatisfaction is such a key factor and talk about ways it could be tackled.

Click here to read the full article: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(25)00333-5/fulltext?dgcid=tlcom_podcast_acq-december25_lanpsy

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Weight gain is a typical side-effect of taking antipsychotics and can have a big impact on people. But for young people with bipolar disorder, metformin isn't commonly prescribed alongside an antipsychotic. In this episode, Melissa DelBello describes a huge randomised trial in the USA on metformin for young people with bipolar disorder taking antipsychotics, looking at its effects over a 2-year period.

Click here to read the full article: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(25)00273-1/fulltext

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Up to 1 in 4 women and birthing parents experience perinatal mental health difficulties, but there isn't enough evidence around interventions that could help them, especially interventions that work with the parent-infant bond or that focus on a broad range of mental health difficulties rather than specific disorders. 

Camilla Rosan talks about what's needed in perinatal mental health services, and tells us about the trial she just led on Circle of Security-Parenting (COS-P), a group intervention for birthing parents with infants aged under 1 year.

Read the full article:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(25)00263-9/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_October_25_lanpsy

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