How people move may offer clues to their mental health

The way people move may provide clues about their mental health and associated patterns of behaviour and symptoms, according to new research that could ultimately have implications for how psychological wellbeing is understood and assessed. Researchers from Northwestern University in Illinois and other institutions examined the relationship between a range of movement characteristics and psychological symptoms, including anxiety, depression, mania, dissociation, substance use and psychosis.

Movement difficulties have previously been associated with conditions including schizophrenia and other mental health disorders. But researchers have been less certain about whether particular kinds of movement can be linked with specific psychological symptoms, rather than conventional diagnostic categories.

The new study, published in Clinical Psychological Science, suggests there are some identifiable relationships, although the researchers did not find simple one-to-one connections between individual movement patterns and particular symptoms.

The researchers analysed data from 3,460 participants in the Multi-Site Assessment of Psychosis-Risk study. Participants reported psychological symptoms as well as information about movement and physical activity, including problems with coordination and involuntary movements.

The analysis found that overall movement problems, involuntary or uncontrolled movements and coordination difficulties were positively associated, to varying degrees, with all of the psychological symptom domains examined.

There were also differences in levels of physical activity. Greater physical activity was associated with symptoms of mania and substance use, while lower activity levels were associated with detachment, fear and distress.

The researchers say that the findings add to growing interest in taking a more transdiagnostic approach to mental health, looking at characteristics that cut across conventional diagnostic categories rather than assuming that individual symptoms belong exclusively to particular disorders.

For employers and occupational health professionals, the research is not presented as evidence that behaviour or movement in the workplace should be used to identify or diagnose an employee’s mental health. The measures were based on self-reported movement and psychological symptoms, and the study does not establish that particular movements are reliable indicators of a specific condition. Instead, the researchers argue that motor characteristics could provide another dimension for researchers and clinicians seeking to understand the mechanisms, prognosis and treatment of serious mental illness.

They suggest that motor symptoms may function both as a broad marker associated with psychological difficulties and, in some circumstances, as a more specific predictor of mental health symptoms. The authors say further research, including studies involving people with diagnosed mental illnesses, is needed to understand the clinical significance of these relationships.

The study also reflects a broader shift away from treating mental health conditions solely as discrete categories. Its authors use the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology, or HiTOP, which seeks to organise psychological problems according to dimensions and groups of symptoms that can overlap traditional diagnoses.

The paper, Motor Abnormalities and the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology: Incorporating a Psychomotor Perspective Into a Hierarchical Dimensional Symptom Framework, by Jessica Fattal and colleagues, was first published online in Clinical Psychological Science on 15 June 2026.

Read the study in Clinical Psychological Science