LAUSR

World Psychiatry 21:3 October 2022 transitions between multiple stable states, and include only linear effects, while complex systems thinking often involves the presence of feedback loops, phase transitions between multiple stable states, interactions at different time-scales, and non-linear effects. It may be that the understanding of mental health requires all these concepts and more, being an interplay not only of symptoms but also of numerous other factors, ranging from biological to sociological factors, and from fast effects that span seconds to slow effects that span a lifetime. The development of methods that capture and explain this complexity may be one of the great challenges that mental health research is to face in the coming decades.