Skip to main content

Call for papers - Mental health, discourse, and stigma

Guest Editors:
David Matthew Edmonds: University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Zoë Fortune: University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Olga Zayts-Spence: University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong


BMC Psychology published a Collection on Mental Health, Discourse, and Stigma.

In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic and other socio-cultural upheavals have brought mental health to the forefront as a matter of pressing public health concern. Despite innumerable public awareness campaigns, mental health and stigma remain taboo topics in many places around the world. Mental health and stigma have traditionally been approached in psychology from individualistic, biomedical, and cognitivist perspectives. Yet, in recent years there has been an increasing amount of sociolinguistic research that acknowledges the central role that language has in constructing, resisting, and reproducing mental health and stigma. We welcomed submissions that covered but were not limited to the mentioned aspects of sociolinguistic research in mental health.

The format of submissions included research articles, reviews, case reports, and meta-analyses, among others.

Meet the Guest Editors

Back to top

David Matthew Edmonds: University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Dr. David Matthew Edmonds is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of English at The University of Hong Kong. In addition, he is affiliated with the University’s Research and Impact Initiative for Communication in Healthcare (HKU RIICH). His research background is diverse with psychology, sociology, and linguistics informing his work. His two predominant research interests are on studying social interaction in different healthcare settings and qualitative investigations of mental health.

Zoë Fortune: University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Dr Zoë Fortune is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong and leads the Mental Health Communication research cluster at the University’s Research and Impact Initiative for Communication in Healthcare (HKU RIICH). With a background in Psychology and mixed methods research, she has conducted research across a variety of healthcare settings that include mental health, forensic healthcare, and primary care. Her current research focuses on workplace mental health and vulnerable populations, an interest she developed while setting up and leading a Hong Kong based NGO.  She is also a practicing psychotherapist.

Olga Zayts-Spence: University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Dr. Olga Zayts-Spence is the Founding Director of Research and Impact Initiative for Communication in Healthcare (HKU RIICH) at the University of Hong Kong. With her dual background in applied linguistics and public health, Dr. Zayts-Spence has researched in diverse clinical contexts. Her current projects focus on mental health of vulnerable demographic groups in the workforce. Dr. Zayts-Spence is a Board member of Mind Hong Kong, a mental health NGO, and an Advisory Board Member of City Mental Health Alliance Hong Kong, a workplace mental health organization. She has published widely in linguistic, medical and interdisciplinary journals.  She is the Founding Editor of “Routledge Studies on Language, Health and Culture” that publishes pioneering health communication research from Asia.


About the collection

BMC Psychology welcomed submissions to this collection on Mental Health, Discourse, and Stigma.

In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic and other socio-cultural upheavals have brought mental health to the forefront as a matter of pressing public health concern. Despite innumerable public awareness campaigns, mental health and stigma remain taboo topics in many places around the world. Mental health and stigma have traditionally been approached in psychology from individualistic, biomedical, and cognitivist perspectives. Yet, in recent years there has been an increasing amount of sociolinguistic research that acknowledges the central role that language has in constructing, resisting, and reproducing mental health and stigma.

We welcomed submissions that covered but were not limited to the mentioned aspects of sociolinguistic research in mental health. The format of submissions includes research articles, reviews, case reports, and meta-analyses, among others.


Image credit: Kat Smith / Pexels

  1. In the context of stigma and mental health research, limited empirical studies examine stigma through the positioning of individuals within interview contexts. This study addresses this gap by investigating th...

    Authors: Monika Schamschula and Jean Lillian Paul
    Citation: BMC Psychology 2024 12:433
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. Mental health is highly correlated with a person’s social and economic circumstances, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic made this connection uniquely visible. Yet a discourse of personal responsibility for ment...

    Authors: Grace Horwood, Martha Augoustinos and Clemence Due
    Citation: BMC Psychology 2023 11:370
    Content type: Research Published on:

  7. In this editorial to the special collection “Mental Health, Discourse and Stigma” we outline the concepts of mental, health, discourse and stigma as they are examined through sociolinguistic lenses. We examine...

    Authors: Olga Zayts-Spence, David Edmonds and Zoe Fortune
    Citation: BMC Psychology 2023 11:180
    Content type: Editorial Published on:

Submission Guidelines

Back to top

This Collection welcomes submission of Research Articles. Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read our submission guidelines. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Mental Health, Discourse, and Stigma" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.