Commentary: Integrative, multi-level explanatory models are needed to understand recent trends in sex, gender, and internalizing conditions, reflections on Keyes and Platt (2023).

Abstract

Keyes' and Platt's (The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2023) review provides much-needed systematic evidence about why internalizing symptoms have increased and it clarifies the role of novel risk factors. The findings highlight that multiple factors at multiple levels are responsible for this phenomenon, many with small effects, within a complex interplay that is rarely well captured. As new insights emerge across disciplines, an important step is to renew efforts to integrate them to understand how internalizing symptoms develop for different people.