Inpatient mental health services are meant to provide safe places for people experiencing mental health difficulties to receive support and recover, but for many, the reality is far from this ideal.

Exercise-based interventions, potentially serving as either alternative treatments for depression or alongside medication and/or therapy, are recommended by the UK National Institute for Health and ...

In the UK 40% of adults with learning disabilities (28% if problem behaviours are excluded) experience mental health problems at any point in time. An estimated 36% of children and young people (24% ...

Violence against women is a major human rights violation that affects one in three women worldwide and has profound and overlapping impacts on women’s physical and mental health (World Health ...

Edwards et al. (2024) provide an “elf-ing” hand in understanding crisis mental health support for children and young people (CYP)! In England between December 2019 and April 2021, there was a 47% ...

Suicide is a major public health concern, which claims nearly 800,000 lives worldwide each year (World Health Organization, 2016). In the UK only, it accounts for approximately 6,000 deaths annually ...

If you’re reading the Mental Elf, I am going to make the assumption that you value evidence and believe it should inform clinical practice. But evidence is not black and white, and unfortunately, ...

Microaggressions are simply defined as brief, commonplace daily verbal and/or behavioural slights or indignities that display hostility towards marginalised and minoritised people (Nadal et al, 2018).

In my clinical work some of the most challenging patients to manage are those with ‘treatment resistant depression‘ and unfortunately up to 30% of people with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder ...

Mental disorders are a major and increasing public health concern (Global Burden of Disease, 2022) and the main reason of sickness absence and work disability pension in most high-income countries ...

Suicide is a serious public health issue which has devastating impacts on families, friends and communities. Each year, 720,000 people die by suicide worldwide (World Health Organization, 2024).

Over the past decade there has been huge interest in the role of the microbiome-gut-brain axis in brain function and mental health (as covered in these previous Mental Elf blogs: Murray, 2024; Clarke, ...