Special Report

The Future of Mental Health

Smithsonian magazine brings you stories about the latest advancements in treatments and understanding of mental illness

Many new digital psychiatry solutions have attracted funding in recent years, and experts have questions about how helpful or harmful they will be.

Can Digital Psychiatry Really Fill the Mental Health Care Gap?

Participants in a Heroes’ Harvests hunt in Idaho stop and call to distant male turkeys, or toms, to locate them.

Why Nature-Based Therapy Is Gaining Traction Among Veterans

This functional connectivity map, a kind of “fingerprint” of the brain, displays how different regions interact with each other in 12-year-olds. The map was constructed from resting-state MRIs, where participants were lying down and not completing a task. Larger red circles denote brain “nodes” with more connections.

Can a ‘Fingerprint’ of Your Brain Help Predict Disorders?

More Stories

Rats make a high-pitched sound similar to laughter when they're being tickled.

Tickling Rats Reveals a Brain Region Linked to Laughter and Play

Many new digital psychiatry solutions have attracted funding in recent years, and experts have questions about how helpful or harmful they will be.

Can Digital Psychiatry Really Fill the Mental Health Care Gap?

Bhav Jain and Simar Bajaj

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, about half of all American adults reported experiencing loneliness.

An 'Epidemic' of Loneliness Threatens Health of Americans, Surgeon General Says

Margaret Osborne

Participants in a Heroes’ Harvests hunt in Idaho stop and call to distant male turkeys, or toms, to locate them.

Why Nature-Based Therapy Is Gaining Traction Among Veterans

This functional connectivity map, a kind of “fingerprint” of the brain, displays how different regions interact with each other in 12-year-olds. The map was constructed from resting-state MRIs, where participants were lying down and not completing a task. Larger red circles denote brain “nodes” with more connections.

Can a ‘Fingerprint’ of Your Brain Help Predict Disorders?

Roughly 4 percent of adults in the United States have chronic nightmares.

Can a Musical Reminder Banish Bad Dreams?

A yoga instructor practices a breathing exercise.

How Does Breathing Affect Your Brain?

Greg Miller, Knowable Magazine

The project started eight years ago, when artists Heidi Quante and Alicia Escott had no words to describe the anxiety they were experiencing over California’s drought.

How Two California Artists Can Help Personalize Your Eco-Grief

Past research has found that people’s personalities are relatively immune to changes following collective stressful events, but Covid-19 appears to be an exception.

Has the Pandemic Changed Your Personality?

Jacquelyne Germain