Nature-Based Interventions: Mechanisms for Mental Health and Recovery

Nature-based interventions are increasingly recognised as potentially scalable and accessible approaches to supporting mental health and recovery. However, despite growing empirical interest, the field remains theoretically fragmented, and the mechanisms and processes through which such interventions may exert their effects are still insufficiently understood.This Research Topic aims to advance a more focused and mechanism-informed understanding of how, why, for whom, and under what circumstances nature-based interventions contribute to mental health and recovery. A better understanding of mechanisms is needed not only to explain intervention outcomes, but to strengthen the theoretical basis of the field and inform the development, design, targeting, and implementation of more effective interventions.This is particularly important as nature-based interventions are increasingly applied to complex mental health challenges and to clinical and clinically relevant populations. Moving beyond assumptions about the benefits of nature requires greater clarity about what interventions are intended to influence, which components are expected to contribute to change, and how these processes may differ across individuals, populations, interventions, and contexts.Mechanisms may operate across multiple and interacting levels, including biological and physiological, cognitive, emotional and affective, behavioural, embodied and sensory, relational and social, experiential, and place- or identity-related processes. Understanding interactions across these levels may be particularly important for intervention design. Greater attention to biological and physiological mechanisms may also help bridge psychological, clinical, medical, and health-science perspectives and support an integrated understanding of mental and physical health.We therefore particularly welcome contributions that move beyond descriptive outcome studies to investigate mechanisms, mediators, moderators, therapeutic processes, active components, and context-dependent pathways of change. This includes research examining how natural environments may function not merely as settings for intervention but as active elements within processes of change, as well as studies investigating resilience, meaning-making, nature connectedness, restorative processes, stress regulation, and other theoretically grounded pathways.Particular attention is encouraged to the interplay between mechanisms and context. Intervention effects and pathways may vary according to participant characteristics and baseline mental health, therapeutic and relational factors, intervention structure and delivery, facilitator characteristics, qualities of the natural environment, patterns of nature exposure and engagement, and broader social and cultural conditions. Studies examining which mechanisms operate for whom, in which contexts, and at which levels are therefore especially welcome.The Research Topic particularly encourages research involving adults experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, and trauma-related conditions, including clinical and clinically relevant populations. We also welcome research representing underrepresented populations, cultural contexts, and knowledge systems, including Global South and Indigenous perspectives, particularly where such work can broaden understanding of how mechanisms and intervention processes may vary across social, cultural, ecological, and healthcare contexts.We additionally welcome research addressing environmentally related mental health challenges, including eco-anxiety, ecological grief, and other psychological responses to environmental and climate-related change, where nature-based interventions and their underlying mechanisms are relevant to mental health, adaptation, or recovery.Overall, the Research Topic seeks not only to consolidate current knowledge, but to advance the field by encouraging more explicit, theoretically informed, and empirically testable accounts of how nature-based interventions may contribute to mental health and recovery. By bringing together psychological, physiological, clinical, social, and environmental perspectives, we aim to support a more integrated science of nature-based interventions and strengthen the translation of mechanism-focused knowledge into intervention development and practice.We invite high-quality empirical studies using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches, as well as theoretical, conceptual, and methodological contributions.Themes of interest include, but are not limited to:• Mechanisms and processes of change in nature-based interventions, including biological, physiological, psychological, behavioural, social, embodied, experiential, and environmental pathways • Interactions between mechanisms operating at different levels, and their implications for intervention development and design • Biological and physiological mechanisms relevant to mental and physical health, and research bridging psychological, clinical, medical, and health-science perspectives • Restorative, stress-regulatory, emotional, cognitive, and resilience-related processes supporting mental health, adaptation, and recovery • Embodied, sensory, relational, and therapeutic processes, including therapeutic alliance, trust and safety, group processes, and the role of nature as an active therapeutic context • Meaning-making, identity, place attachment, belonging, and nature connectedness as potential mechanisms, mediators, moderators, processes, or outcomes • Mediators and moderators of intervention effects, including participant characteristics, therapeutic and relational factors, intervention design and delivery, facilitator characteristics, environmental qualities, nature exposure and engagement, and social or cultural context • Mechanisms and therapeutic processes in clinical and clinically relevant populations, including adults experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, and trauma-related conditions • Comparative, dismantling, mediation, moderation, and process-oriented studies designed to identify active components, pathways of change, and context-dependent effects • Methodological and conceptual advances in the study of mechanisms and processes of change in nature-based interventions • Research involving underrepresented populations, cultural contexts, and knowledge systems, including Global South and Indigenous perspectives • Nature-based interventions addressing environmentally related mental health challenges, including eco-anxiety and ecological griefTopic Editor Tanya Uhnger Wünsche is the founder and Director of NEED FOR NATURE: Global Nature Connectedness Group. The other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject. Topic editors: Dorthe Djernis, Ryan Lumber, David Sheffield, Tanya Uhnger Wünsche Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83226/nature-based-interventions-mechanisms-for-mental-health-and-recovery