Classifying and Understanding Worldviews in Mental Health: A Scoping Review

Abstract

People understand the world through frameworks of meaning-making called worldviews. Worldviews can vary across individuals, and therefore, it is possible that each worldview has person-centric needs for mental health treatment. This scoping review aims to first, identify worldviews formulated in the literature in relation to mental health; second, classify these identified worldviews according to the Integrative Worldview Framework (IWF); and third, map the relationships between the IWF classified worldviews and mental health. A systematic search was conducted, from which 110 papers were included, and their worldviews were classified according to the IWF. IWF’s traditional, modern, post-modern, and integrative worldviews served as initial deductive themes, under which the inductively themed worldviews from the search were classified. The traditional and integrative worldviews appear positively related to mental health, while the post-modern had contrasting results, and the modern worldview appeared to have a predominantly negative relationship to mental health. However, acting in congruence with one’s worldview by maintaining a sense of meaning, security, and consistency in beliefs and actions may mediate the relationship between worldviews and mental health. This finding was evident across worldview categories. Implications for practice and research are discussed, along with future directions for research.