Global Perspectives on Mental Health, Counselling, and Evidence-Based Interventions in Contemporary Psychiatry

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, there has been growing recognition that effective mental health care requires not only diagnostic accuracy and pharmacological treatment but also accessible, well-integrated counselling services and psychologically informed interventions across diverse organizational and societal contexts. The Special Issue welcomes contributions that examine counselling and psychological interventions at multiple levels of care, including clinical psychiatric settings, community-based services, workplace mental health programs, and higher education institutions. University counselling services, student mental health initiatives, and preventive interventions in academic environments are particularly relevant, as these settings represent critical points for early identification, support, and long-term well-being promotion.

A central aim of this Special Issue is to highlight the practical applicability and real-world effectiveness of counselling interventions. We encourage submissions that address implementation processes, service models, and contextual adaptation, as well as studies that evaluate intervention outcomes in routine practice. Manuscripts employing routine outcome monitoring (ROM), feedback-informed treatment approaches, and other systematic evaluation frameworks are especially welcome, as they contribute to transparency, quality improvement, and evidence-based decision-making in everyday mental health care. In addition to original empirical studies, systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and narrative reviews that synthesize existing evidence and identify gaps in counselling practice and intervention research are also warmly welcomed.

By bringing together research from different cultural, institutional, and professional contexts, this Special Issue seeks to bridge the gap between research and practice. It aims to provide clinicians, counsellors, service developers, and policymakers with actionable insights into how counselling and psychological interventions can be effectively implemented, monitored, and sustained within contemporary psychiatric and mental health systems worldwide.

We are pleased to share the concept and aims of our planned Special Issue, which seeks to bring together diverse international perspectives on mental health, counselling, and psychological interventions within contemporary psychiatry.

The focus of the Special Issue is on global perspectives on mental health and psychological well-being, with particular emphasis on counselling and evidence-based psychological interventions. We aim to highlight counselling as a core component of mental health care that complements psychiatric and medical approaches, and one that plays a crucial role across clinical, community, organizational, and educational settings.

The scope of the Special Issue is intentionally broad and multidisciplinary. We welcome empirical studies, intervention research, and review papers that examine counselling and psychological interventions across multiple levels of care, including clinical psychiatry, community and public mental health services, workplace and organizational contexts, and higher education institutions. Contributions may address intervention design, implementation, cultural adaptation, and outcome evaluation, including routine outcome monitoring (ROM), feedback-informed treatment, and service-level quality assurance frameworks.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to bridge the gap between research and practice by promoting practice-oriented, outcome-informed, and context-sensitive approaches to counselling and psychological interventions. By emphasizing real-world applicability and systematic outcome evaluation, the Special Issue aims to support the development of effective, transparent, and sustainable mental health services within contemporary psychiatric systems.

In terms of its contribution to the existing literature, this Special Issue seeks to supplement current research by shifting attention from predominantly disorder-specific or efficacy-focused studies toward the practical implementation and routine evaluation of counselling interventions in real-world settings. While the literature is rich in controlled trials and theoretical models, fewer publications address how counselling services operate within complex organizational systems, how intervention effectiveness is monitored in routine care, or how evidence-based practices are adapted across cultural and institutional contexts.

By explicitly welcoming studies that employ routine outcome monitoring, service-level evaluation, and integrative reviews synthesizing evidence across settings, this Special Issue aims to offer a practice-oriented perspective that remains underrepresented in the field. In addition, by integrating insights from higher education and other non-traditional mental health contexts into contemporary psychiatric discourse, we hope to foster a more comprehensive, system-level understanding of mental health counselling and psychological well-being.

We warmly invite you to consider contributing to this Special Issue and to share this invitation with colleagues who may be interested.

With kind regards,

Dr. Boróka Gács
Dr. Beáta Laki
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Psychiatry International is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• mental health
• psychological well-being
• counselling
• psychotherapy
• evidence-based interventions
• routine outcome monitoring
• feedback-informed treatment
• intervention effectiveness
• implementation research
• service evaluation
• applied psychiatry
• community mental health
• higher education mental health
• university counselling services
• preventive interventions
• global mental health