Language and Emotions in Mental Health

Language is a central medium through which emotions are expressed, regulated, and interpreted. In individuals with psychological disorders, verbal behavior often reveals underlying emotional and cognitive disturbances. Depressive language may show increased self-focus and negative valence; anxious speech may reflect hypervigilance or avoidance; psychotic discourse may exhibit semantic incoherence. Beyond clinical symptoms, everyday emotional communication, whether in therapy, relationships, or digital contexts, offers rich insights into mental functioning. Advances in psycholinguistics and discourse analysis have enabled researchers to explore how emotional states manifest in syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Understanding this interplay between language and emotions is crucial for both theoretical models of psychopathology and practical tools for assessment and intervention.

This Research Topic invites contributions that explore the relationship between language and emotions, with a particular focus on how psychological disorders affect verbal expression. We welcome studies examining emotional language in clinical populations, as well as research on how emotions are encoded and decoded in everyday communication. Topics may include linguistic markers of depression, anxiety, trauma, or psychosis; emotional regulation through language; and the role and the features of verbal interaction in therapeutic settings. Submissions may use qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods, including discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, experimental paradigms, and clinical interviews.

We encourage interdisciplinary approaches that integrate psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, psychiatry, and communication studies. Moreover, this Research Topic is also interested in deepening cross modal analysis of verbal communication features supporting the modeling and the algorithmic implementation of socially believable ICT interfaces and friendly and emotionally colored interactive dialog systems aimed at improving the life quality of the end users. By focusing on the emotional dimensions of language in psychological disorders, this Research Topic aims to deepen our understanding of verbal behavior as both a symptom and a resource in mental health.

We invite original research articles, systematic reviews, theoretical papers, and case studies:
· Examining emotional expression in language across psychological disorders
· Analyzing verbal behavior in clinical and therapeutic contexts
· Identifying linguistic indicators of affective dysregulation
· Investigating cultural and linguistic variability in emotional communication
· Evaluating implications for diagnosis, therapy, and mental health policy
· Employing innovative linguistic diagnostic methods, including large language models

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Registered Report
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Emotions, language, psychopathology, verbal behavior, affective expression, psychological disorders, linguistic markers, clinical psychology

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.