Self-help peer-support groups in Israel emerged in the 1980s and, over time, dynamically interacted and co-developed with the statutory mental health (MH) system. In this editorial, I outline historical milestones of how the evolution of the Israeli mental health system was influenced by the consumer movement. A brief depiction of the consumer movement history. At first, consumers operated outside of the mainstream MH system. Gradually, consumer groups and institutional personnel joined efforts towards community integration and enhancement of quality of life, pushing forward a person-centered recovery orientation. In turn, some administrators and key stakeholders in rehabilitation community services grew to value the impact of knowledge-by-experience in contemporary mental health care. In this context, over the past decade, peer roles were developed in the mental health system, including consumer-providers in community services and peer specialists in inpatient psychiatric hospitals. The insertion of peer roles into the mainstream MH system is far-reaching, including the placement of a peer-project coordinator within the ministry of health. I describe the unique contribution of peers, as experts-by-experience, to mainstream professional knowledge and practice. I also highlight the potential challenges involved when peer models of care are added to traditional medical models of care. The Israeli case demonstrates how the consumer movement can play an active role in MH systems and be acknowledged and recognised as a partner for changing policy, practice and reshaping formal institutions. In addition, they play a vital role in the development of peer-support services.

Given the multitude of risk factors for depression in modern society and given the negative consequences of depressive problems for successful ageing, investigating resilience in relation to depression may help identifying entry points for reducing the burden of morbidity. Research on resilience begins with the realisation that individuals may demonstrate good physical or psychological functioning despite being exposed to risk experiences that can have serious negative impact on functioning. Interest in investigating resilience within ageing research has been increasing. Among the approaches toward investigating resilience are so-called a priori approaches, where criteria for inferring resilience are established a priori. In this editorial, we highlight some of the advantages of taking a priori approaches to the study of resilience and we touch on the implications for a priori approaches for the topic of resilience and depression. We argue that depression should take a prominent role in resilience research, because depression is strongly associated with opportunities for successful ageing.

René Descartes described the concept of mind–body dualism in the 16th century. This concept has been called his error but we prefer to call it his dogma because the error was recognised much later. We studied the original writings translated by various scholars. We believe that his dogma has caused tremendous amount of damage to Western psychiatry. This dualism has created boundaries between mind and body but as we know they are inextricably interlinked and influence each other. This has affected clinical practice and has increased the dichotomy between psychiatric services and the physical health care services in the West at least. This dualism has also contributed to stigma against mental illness, the mentally ill and the psychiatric services. We propose that it is time to abandon this mind–body dualism and to look at the whole patient and their illness experiences as is done in some other health care systems such as Ayurveda.