In the 21st century, war, famine, genocide, and natural disasters have led to the highest levels of forced human migration in recorded history. Enduring global and local inequities rooted in racism and ethnocentrism shape youth well-being but are insufficiently considered in literature aiming to support youth mental health. This paper uses feminist decolonial and critical race theories to disrupt notions that Western perspectives on mental health are superior or the norm, and discusses the social context of Bhutanese refugee youth. We then describe a multiyear (2021–2023) community-based participatory research (CBPR) process with Bhutanese refugee youth and their families in the United States centered on supporting youth mental health. Data analyzed for this study include ethnographic field notes of listening sessions and events as well as transcripts of a focus group, all conducted during this period. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings illustrate challenges and disillusionment associated with resettlement, along with community-driven supportive efforts. We share recommendations offered by the community that are culturally responsive to their needs and discuss how to promote youth well-being in the context of widespread global inequity.

In research-intensive fields such as psychology, research mentoring is a crucial component of academic and professional advancement. Research mentoring occurs when a more experienced person mentors a more junior person in research. Although these mentoring relationships have significant potential to address systemic inequities in psychology and academia more generally, some mentoring relationships do the opposite by further marginalizing women, People of Color, and Women of Color. In this theoretical paper, we argue that the absence of radical accountability is the root cause of many problems in mentoring relationships. Building on critical frameworks and corresponding empirical work, we conceptualize radical accountability as practice whereby mentors critically reflect on how power and privilege shape mentoring dynamics and take intentional steps to redress inequity. After describing radical accountability and its conceptual underpinnings, we engage in the feminist practice of reflexivity to describe how we—the authors of the paper—applied it in a recent professional endeavor. This discussion leverages the authors’ diverse professional and sociodemographic backgrounds. We conclude by providing practical recommendations for how mentors can engage in radical accountability.

This paper explores the experiences of young LGBTQ+ people with mental health services in Finland. Drawing on collaboratively created focus group data, we apply minority stress theory and an intersectional lens to shed light on how LGBTQ+ young people's subjective and collective experiences with mental health services are shaped by various interlocking systems of oppression, including cisheteronormativity, ableism and racism. We analysed the data using reflexive thematic analysis, identifying four themes: expectations, experiences, outcomes and demands. Together, these themes illustrate how shortcomings in mental health services feed into minority stress, often resulting in inadequate mental healthcare for LGBTQ+ young people. However, our analysis also illuminates the agentic stance that participants adopted in demanding improvements to existing mental health provision. We conclude by emphasising the importance of developing intersectional sensitivity and increased awareness of the specific needs of sexual and gender minority young people, and the challenges they face when seeking help for mental distress.

Amongst the authors of this article exist mentoring relationships between a group of Black womxn that have spanned almost 2 decades. One of the key advantages of such mentorship is the provision of a role model who has successfully navigated unique challenges. From student to mentor, peer-to-peer mentor, and the “matriarch mentor” to us all, Black womxnist mentoring is exemplified and breathes life into our relationships, which we all hold dearly. This mentoring relationship is pivotal in professional development, providing insights into career advancement opportunities such as networking, research collaborations, and leadership roles. By sharing their experiences and professional networks, Black womxn psychologists can open doors to the profession that might otherwise remain closed, helping their mentees gain visibility and recognition in the field. This support, particularly vital in underrepresented settings like academia and clinical agencies, is nurturing in nature.

Psychological theories often conceptualise identity as a coherent, interiorised essence, a framing that constrains the fluid and relational experiences of sexual minority individuals. In caste-structured contexts like India, identity emerges from continual negotiation across caste, class, gender and religion rather than interior coherence. Drawing on queer phenomenology and critical intersectionality within an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), this study examines the experiences of sexual minority women in Kerala as they negotiate their identities through sociospatial regulation. Semistructured interviews revealed identity negotiation as a constant interplay of disorientation, reorientation and subversion articulated through three major themes: (a) spatially induced dilemma, which includes dilemmas about self-expression, dissonance in corporeal schema and out-of-sync temporality; (b) navigating spatial constraints, marked by layered and anticipatory shame, religious and ideological tensions, disembodiment shaped by structurally embedded shame materialising as internalised homonegativity, contested queer authenticity and affective negotiations around normativity; (c) embodied everyday acts of subjective subversion, involving flexible reorientations, agentic reworkings of failure and reimagined futures beyond dominant hetero-coherent narratives. By foregrounding nonlinearity and situated subjective subversion, this study critiques essentialist psychological models and emphasises the precarious, situated practices of queer becoming.

The intensive motherhood discourse establishes norms around what is socially considered a ‘good mum’. Social media platforms like Instagram contribute to the widespread reach and reproduction of these norms, although pockets of resistance have been found. Building on humour's capacity to both reinforce and subvert social norms, and its wide circulation on Instagram, this study explores how mum humour contributes to the representation, reproduction and contestation of contemporary motherhood discourses. Furthermore, we sought to understand what mothers take from mum humour and how this shapes their positioning toward these discourses. We identified ten mum humour influencers and selected their five most liked videos for analysis. We also ran a focus group with mum humour followers. Our paper considers three themes that illustrate how mum humour navigates contemporary motherhood: gentle vs. traditional mums; real vs. ideal mums; and overloaded mums vs. good dads. Regarding mum humour's functions, we identified three themes: craving realness, solidarity, and private resistance. Overall, we found that mum humour (seemingly) challenges the good mum ideology and cleverly exposes the asymmetric gendered expectations that sustain it. However, it was discouraging that, at least among our participants, resistance to these unrealistic demands remains largely confined to their private sphere.

Mentorship plays a vital role in feminist engagement, which is essential for advancing equity for women and other marginalized individuals in academia. As research and reflection progress in developing inclusive and empowering environments in psychology, feminist has emerged as a key area for transforming the discipline. Characterized as a lateral, collaborative, advocacy-oriented, holistic, and individualized approach to training and supervision, feminist models have been developed as a more equitable alternative to traditional hierarchical models. This special issue invited contributions that explore how feminist can promote equity, diversity, inclusion, and a sense of belonging across various intersecting social identities within all domains of psychology. Given the substantial number of submissions received, the contributions will be distributed across two issues of the journal. In the first of these two issues, this editorial summarizes the key theoretical foundations, practices, and experiences presented in the first seven contributions on feminist in psychology.

Violence has been a major area of global focus for feminist psychologists for decades. From its earliest volumes to the present day, Feminism & Psychology continues to provide a forum for critical and feminist psychological contributions in this domain. This work has collectively drawn attention to the power relations underscoring experiences of - and responses to - violence. Simultaneously, intersectional feminist theory has drawn attention to the complexities and nuances of these power relations. This work reveals how these power relations frame what counts as violence, whose experiences of violence 'matter', and who is worthy of attention, recognition, and support. In this Virtual Special Issue, we present examples of work from the Journal's history that address violence from this perspective. While some authors explicitly name this perspective as 'intersectional', others do not. As such, we observe an 'intersectional consciousness' that runs through this collection, both implicitly and explicitly. In response, we conclude that ongoing feminist intersectional dialogue, collaboration, and imagination is needed in order to engage with the shifting complexities of power, (in)visibility, and possibility that shape understandings and enactments of violence.

This commentary examines the political responsibility of person-centred therapists in addressing misogyny within therapeutic spaces. Despite the absence of a unified recommendation for confronting social justice issues, therapists are urged to reflect on their role in this area. By considering the reasons young men and boys join manosphere communities, the commentary situates digital radicalisation within an attachment-informed psychotherapy framework. Misogyny is reframed as a fear of care and relational vulnerability, rooted in intergenerational trauma and disrupted attachment. Therapy, as a secure relational space, offers opportunities to explore these root causes. Within such attuned relationships, therapists can act as both secure base and challenger, resembling the function of a secure attachment figure. Gendered socialisation has led to a predominance of female therapists, a dynamic that must be acknowledged when working with clients who hold misogynistic beliefs. The commentary proposes that challenge is a collective therapeutic responsibility and suggests borrowing from other psychological models to engage in therapeutic activism: reflecting on personal gender biases, inquiring into the origins of oppressive beliefs, educating clients on feminism and systemic oppression, and explicitly naming harmful views. Ultimately, therapists are called to embody relational activism, fostering safety, accountability, and reflective capacity.

Technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) is increasing in prevalence among young people and has significant implications for their mental health and well-being. In this article, we reflect on our experiences taking an intersectional feminist approach to research on TFSV among youth. In the feminist tradition of reflection, we critically examine how our intersectional feminist approach challenged and/or aligned with typical psychological research. Using Wigginton and Lafrance's methodological considerations for doing critical feminist research in psychology, we consider questions related to reflexivity, representation, language, and the value of mobilizing research for social change. We hope to offer tangible examples and strategies that scholars across disciplines can take when applying intersectional feminist and values-based approaches to their research, especially with challenging topics such as youth mental health and sexual violence.