Our expert answers 3 Questions
What are you thinking about?
How are concepts of depression and anxiety communicated to patients in healthcare settings - as biological illnesses, as environmental stressors, or as signals for change? What implications do our mental models of these disorders have for our perceptions of prognosis and treatment recommendations?
Why is this interesting to you?
The ways in which these disorders are talked about may send implicit messages about their changeability and hope for recovery. These messages may be communicated outside of our awareness, so I’d like to study them systematically.
What are practical implications for healthcare?
Optimizing mental health narratives can facilitate communication between doctors and patients to better align patient treatment preferences, goals, and outcomes.