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Clinical Psychology and Special Education
2025. Vol. 14, no. 3, 5–17
doi:10.17759/cpse.2025140301
ISSN: 2304-0394 (online)

The role of interoception in maintaining mental health: review of foreign literature

 
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Abstract

Context and relevance. Interoception is an important component of physiological health, which through the cerebral coordination of homeostatic reflexes and allostatic reactions, ensures the constancy of the internal environment of the body. In addition, interoception is an important part of higher-level mental functions and has an impact on perception, cognitive abilities, emotional affects and behavior. In particular, interoception interacts with such high-order mental functions as self-awareness and its dimensions, which are also designated as components of mental health. Objective. This article actualizes the problem of a broad definition of interoception beyond physiological homeostasis, namely as an element of mental health. Materials and methods. The review included 35 full-text foreign articles mainly for 2018–2024; Pubmed (NCBI), APA Psycnet, Google Scholar electronic libraries were used. Results. The analysis of theoretical and empirical studies made it possible to systematize the contribution of interoception and various dimensions of self-awareness to improving mental health, as well as to identify the limitations of research in this area. Conclusions. An urgent strategy for further studying the maintenance of mental health through improving interoceptive awareness is to consolidate specialists in the field of various research approaches for the proper selection of participants, complement subjective ways of perception with objective methods, to uncover the fundamental neural correlates underlying interoceptive perception, as well as for careful interpretation of the results and their application in clinical psychology and medicine.

General Information

Keywords: interoception, mental health, emotional regulation, self-awareness, self-reflection, interoceprive attention, mindfullness, self-control, inner stimuli, inner physicality, interoceptive awareness

Journal rubric: Theoretical Research

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/cpse.2025140301

Received 29.05.2024

Revised 17.12.2024

Accepted

Published

For citation: Ipatyuk, O.V., Vasin, K.S., Katchieva, P.K. (2025). The role of interoception in maintaining mental health: review of foreign literature. Clinical Psychology and Special Education, 14(3), 5–17. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17759/cpse.2025140301

© Ipatyuk O.V., Vasin K.S., Katchieva P.K., 2025

License: CC BY-NC 4.0

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Information About the Authors

Oleg V. Ipatyuk, Independent Researcher, Individual Entrepreneur, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2333-6150, e-mail: oipatyuk@gmai.com

Kirill S. Vasin, Candidate of Science (Medicine), Research Associate, Laboratory of Molecular Cytogenetics of Neuropsychiatric Diseases, Veltischev Research and Clinical Institute for Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery, Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University, Senior Researcher, Yu.B. Yurov Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Cytogenomics of the Brain, Mental Health Scientific Center, Moscow, Russian Federation, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2799-3706, e-mail: vasinks@rambler.ru

Palina K. Katchieva, Candidate of Science (Medicine), Director, Institute of Biotechnology Development, Cherkessk, Russian Federation, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4255-3861, e-mail: pkatchieva@inbox.ru

Contribution of the authors

Ipatyuk O.V. — ideas; annotation; planning of the research; control over the research.

Vasin K.S. — writing and design of the manuscript.

Katchieva P.Kh. — writing and design of the manuscript.

All authors participated in the discussion of the results and approved the final text of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethics statement

The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Biotechnology Development (Protocol No. 11 dated 18.01.2024).

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