Targeting distressing mental imagery in psychosis: a neglected but promising area for intervention

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What if therapy focused not on thoughts or voices, but on the vivid images that often accompany them? The iMAPS-2 trial tested a novel imagery-focused therapy for psychosis, showing it’s safe, acceptable, and ready for a full-scale trial.

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Doubling of respiratory deaths in people with severe mental illness

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People with severe mental illness are more than twice as likely to die from respiratory disease than those without. This new systematic review highlights the scale of the problem and why action on public health and social inequality is just as vital as stop-smoking advice.

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Do hobbies protect against adolescent substance misuse? Not so fast…

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A new study claims hobbies reduce substance misuse in adolescents, but are we mistaking correlation for causation? Before we start fiddling with interventions, this blog explores the risks of jumping to conclusions.

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Should you start metformin whenever you start antipsychotics?

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Guidelines say metformin can help prevent weight gain from antipsychotics like olanzapine, but this large UK study shows it’s rarely prescribed. What’s stopping us?

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Solastalgia and the mental health impacts of environmental loss

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Climate change is reshaping not just the planet but our emotional lives. Could solastalgia (“solace” (comfort) and “nostalgia” (homesickness)) be a key pathway linking environmental loss to mental distress? This new scoping review of global studies investigates.

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The long view on Brief Admission: autonomy and care for people with borderline personality disorder

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Brief Admission allows people with BPD to self-refer for short respite stays, offering a person-centred alternative to emergency hospitalisation. This 4-year longitudinal study from Sweden reveals who uses it, how it works, and how services could adapt.

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When love breaks down: relationship breakdowns and suicide risk in men

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Men are around 3 times more likely to die by suicide than women, and new evidence suggests relationship breakdowns could be a key risk factor. A major 2025 meta-analysis explores the complex links between separation, divorce, and suicidality in men.

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Is vaping really a gateway to smoking? New review of youth vaping confirms uncertainty

Clinicians who withhold opiates to protect patients from self-harm may be doing more harm than good; is it time to retire this outdated assumption?

Vaping is helping millions quit smoking, but concerns about teen uptake remain. A new blog explores whether the ‘gateway hypothesis’ stands up to scrutiny in the latest umbrella review of vaping harms in young people.

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From pills to people: the rise of social prescribing

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Can we reduce our reliance on medication by prescribing nature walks, art classes and community groups instead? Two new 2025 studies shed light on who’s getting referred to social prescribing, and who isn’t.

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Is intolerance of uncertainty in preschool children a risk factor for later anxiety?

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Do preschoolers who struggle with tolerating uncertainty get more anxious as they grow older? This longitudinal study followed preschool children across three timepoints, and found that the two are strongly related, but the rest of the picture is not as clear cut.

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