Stronger together: The future of psychiatry in a changing Europe
Europe is undergoing profound social, political, and technological transformation, with direct implications for mental health and the systems designed to support it. As demand rises and pressures intensify, psychiatry is being called to respond at scale, while maintaining quality, equity, and continuity of care. Against this backdrop, this year’s European Mental Health Awareness Week theme - “Stronger Together: Prioritise Mental Health in a Changing Europe” - highlights both the urgency of the challenge and the need for collective action.
The scale of the challenge is clear: recent evidence points to sustained increases in anxiety, depression, and loneliness across Europe since the pandemic, contributing to a growing personal and societal burden. Mental disorders account for a significant share of economic cost across EU Member States and the United Kingdom, yet, investment in mental health remains below recommended levels, underlining the need for coordinated, system-wide action.[1],[2]
For psychiatry, these shifts present both a responsibility and an opportunity to lead. At the European Psychiatric Association (EPA), this is being operationalised thorough the 2025–2027 Action Plan. Bringing together clinical, research, and educational priorities aimed at improving care delivery across Europe, the Action Plan represents a key expression of this collective direction.[3]
From strategy to implementation: Responding to a changing mental health landscape
Across Europe, the effects of these wider social and systemic pressures are not evenly distributed. Vulnerable groups, including those affected by conflict, displacement, and social marginalisation, face heightened risks and barriers to care. At the same time, young people are navigating new challenges linked to digital environments, social media use, and uncertainty about the future.[4] These pressures are increasingly shaped by geopolitical instability, forced migration, and widening social inequalities, all of which are placing sustained strain on mental health systems.[5]
Meeting these realities demands more than incremental change, but mental health systems that are adaptable, evidence-based, and closely connected to the communities they serve.
This approach also requires rethinking how care is delivered. Expanding mental health care beyond traditional hospital settings into community environments such as schools and workplaces can improve accessibility and reduce stigma, while enabling more flexible, wide‑reaching care delivery and strengthening service delivery models.
Collaboration as a foundation for progress
Collaboration is central to the EPA’s approach, for example, and to its leadership vision for the future of psychiatry in Europe. This includes close collaborations with international psychiatric and medical societies, as well as user and carer organisations such as GAMIAN-Europe and EUFAMI, which are actively involved in EPA guidance and decision-making.
These partnerships are designed to ensure that a wide range of perspectives, including clinical, scientific, and lived experience, are reflected in how priorities are set and implemented across Europe. Rather than being symbolic, they are intended to shape clinical priorities, policy positions, and models of care in a practical way. Together, they reflect a broader shift toward co-production in mental health where clinicians, patients, and carers work together to design services that are responsive to real-world needs.
A sustainable future for psychiatry depends on investment in people as much as in systems. Collaboration also underpins the EPA’s approach to education and leadership, for instance. Initiatives such as the EPA Leadership Academy aim to equip early-career psychiatrists with the skills and networks needed to navigate increasingly complex healthcare systems.
Precision psychiatry: From ambition to implementation
Innovation must now move from ambition to implementation. Precision psychiatry represents a shift toward more personalised, data-informed care, moving beyond symptom-based diagnosis alone to incorporate clinical history, neurocognitive functioning, physical health, life events, and illness staging.
Within the EPA Action Plan, this is being translated into more comprehensive assessment frameworks that incorporate neurocognition, biomarkers, physical comorbidities, and life course factors. Through the introduction of these assessment frameworks, the EPA Action Plan aims to support earlier, more accurate diagnosis and more tailored and personalised treatment pathways, helping to improve outcomes for patients across Europe.
A lifespan approach to brain and mental health
Mental health is closely linked to brain health and must be understood across the lifespan. Many mental health conditions begin in childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood, during periods of significant brain development.
Understanding these processes is critical for early intervention and effective treatment. Research into brain function, alongside greater integration between psychiatry, neurology, and other medical disciplines, will be essential to improving outcomes across the lifespan.
Public mental health and prevention
Promoting mental health at a population level is as important as treatment. Public mental health approaches, focused on prevention, early intervention, and stigma reduction, are key to reducing long-term disability societal costs whist also demonstrating cost efficiency.
Young people must remain a central focus. With one in seven children and adolescents in the WHO European Region living with a mental health condition, early intervention remains critical.[6] This includes not only clinical support, but also sustained efforts to promote mental health literacy and foster environments that support wellbeing.
As part of this prevention and promotion agenda, mass media and digital platforms have a key role to play. Responsible, accurate, and stigma-free communication can help shape public understanding, elevate the voices of mental health professionals and experts, and encourage help-seeking behaviour.
Looking ahead: Shared responsibility in a changing Europe
These priorities are increasingly shaping the direction of European psychiatry, with a growing focus on translating advances in research into practical improvements in care delivery.
Personalised and integrated care means recognising the uniqueness of each individual through a “Whole Person Health” approach, while strengthening collaboration across disciplines, services, and sectors. It calls for evidence-based, individualised approaches that are adaptable to real-world clinical practice, supported by innovation, prevention, and early intervention.
In a changing Europe, the future of mental health care will depend on whether ambition is matched by implementation. This includes strengthening investment in the workforce, expanding access to care, supporting responsible innovation, and ensuring that services are shaped in partnership with the people they serve.
Psychiatry has a central role to play in this transformation. The challenge now is to ensure that advances in science, service design, and policy lead to measurable improvements in patient outcomes across Europe. By working together across systems and societies and grounding innovation in real-world practice, we can help build mental health care that is more responsive, more equitable, and more resilient.
References
[1] European Commission (2023) Mental health, health.ec.europa.eu. Available at: https://health.ec.europa.eu/non-communicable-diseases/mental-health_en. (Accessed April 2026).
[2] World Health Organization (2023) Rethink mental health: invest in and design better systems for a more resilient European Region, who.int. Available at: https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/10-10-2023-rethink-mental-health--invest-in-and-design-better-systems-for-a-more-resilient-european-region. (Accessed April 2026).
[3] Action Plan 2025-2027 - European Psychiatric Association (2025) European Psychiatric Association. Available at: https://www.europsy.net/action-plan-2025-2027/ (Accessed April 2026).
[4] European Parliamentary Research Service (2025) Youth and social media, European Parliament. PDF available here. (Accessed April 2026).
[5] Yılmaz, İ.S., Yılmaz-Özdemir, İ. and Woodhead, C. (2025) ‘Examining factors influencing forcibly displaced children and youth’s access to mental health support: An overview of reviews’, Children and Youth Services Review, 176, p. 108431. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2025.108431. (Accessed April 2026).
[6] World Health Organization (2025) One in seven children and adolescents in the WHO European Region lives with a mental health condition, finds new WHO Europe report, who.int. Available at: https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/13-11-2025-one-in-7-children-and-adolescents-in-the-who-european-region-lives-with-a-mental-health-condition--finds-new-who-europe-report. (Accessed April 2026).
About the authors
Professor Andrea Fiorillo is president of the European Psychiatric Association for the 2025–2027 term. He is Full Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Naples, Italy. He has over 30 years’ experience as a clinician and researcher and has been actively involved in the EPA for over 20 years, working with 11 previous EPA presidents.
Professor Celso Arango is Chair of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón and director of the Gregorio Marañón Psychiatric and Mental Health Institute in Madrid. His leadership spans European and US psychiatry, and he is internationally recognised for his work in psychiatric research, including inclusion in Stanford University’s World’s Top 2% Scientists and Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers lists.
