Clarifying the research progress on community healing environments holds significant theoretical and practical implications for improving the quality of human settlements. Based on grounded theory, this study analyzes interviews with community residents to identify the mechanisms, scene types, and environmental elements of community healing, and constructs a theoretical framework for the impact mechanisms of community healing environments from the residents’ perspective. This framework unfolds progressively across three levels “risk factor control”, “sustained healing benefits” and “highquality healing activation”. This framework unfolds progressively across three levels: “risk factor control”, “sustained healing benefits” and “high-quality healing activation”. At the foundational level, healing effectiveness consists of two processes. Firstly, negative physical and social environments can lead to adverse physical and mental health outcomes, while environments without such negative features do not necessarily promote healing. At this stage, ensuring a safe physical environment, adequate resource provision, and sound management systems is essential. The second level involves the sustained provision of healing benefits, where residents passively recover simply by being in the environment. At this stage, the environment’s healing potential is reflected in the individual’s perception of environmental information. Stress relief, cognitive arousal, attention restoration, low-intensity physical activity, positive emotional activation, social interaction and support, and leisure activities all occur during this phase. The highest level of healing is characterized by active engagement and participation. This stage involves more intense physical activity, richer positive emotions, recreational participation, deeper and broader social interaction, place attachment, and restorative experiences. At this level, individuals can obtain new physical and social resources from the environment. Individuals in neutral environments (first-level healing) do not need to recover depleted energy and resources. Those benefiting from passive healing (second-level) can further achieve high-quality healing outcomes through active interaction with the environment. Based on the interview results, the types of community healing scenes are categorized into five groups: 1)Blue-green spaces (e.g., parks, waterfront areas, gardens); 2) amenity facilities (e. g., dining and leisure, commercial and shopping, fitness and entertainment, cultural and recreational facilities, religious and historical architecture); 3)Indoor spaces (e. g., balconies, interior residential areas); 4)Residential compound environments, and 5)Streets. Residents’ descriptions of comfort-oriented facilities made up the majority of the interview content, suggesting that they do not focus solely on the healing benefits of blue-green spaces. The theoretical framework guided the review of existing empirical studies on community healing. However, current mainstream empirical research has mainly focused on blue-green spaces and their tranquil and natural attributes. Among environmental sensory modalities, vision receives the most attention, followed by natural sounds and thermal comfort. Visually, aspects such as the proportion of natural versus artificialelements, richness of visual features, vegetation cover, and visibility of water bodies are widely discussed topics. The social and historical-cultural characteristics of environmental features are often associated with user preferences and place attachment. Experiencing the community environment inherently involves people and diverse activities, symbolizing community vitality and social attributes. Yet, comfort-oriented facilities and residential compound environments—which do not align with the tranquil and natural features emphasized in many experimental studies—have often been overlooked. The lack of attention to such healing settings also leads to insufficient research on psychologically vulnerable groups such as adolescents and office workers. In China, healing variables reflecting personal will, emotions, self-realization, and cultural-spiritual identity, such as social interaction and support, positive emotions, and place attachment, are still relatively under-researched. This suggests that domestic research still largely focuses on stimulating and maintaining individual health, while less attention has been given to the roles of the environment in promoting well-being, social engagement, self-realization, and emotional healing. Domestically and internationally, research on blue-green spaces and healthcare facilities is generally aligned. Although China started later than some other countries, the development of research methods has been relatively rapid. Moreover, China has developed healing environment research with unique characteristics, such as exploring the restorative effects of landscape openness. In the future, neuroscience in environmental behavior and environmental psychology should place greater emphasis on users’ subjective experiences, such as their understanding of spatial forms, aesthetic preferences, and behavioral intentions. It has become evident that the symbolic and associative meanings of environments, and their complex mechanisms of influence on healing, have already been recognized as important healing factors by international scholars. In China, some researchers have begun using new technologies such as eyetracking, electrodermal activity (EDA), and electrocardiography (ECG) to identify the restorative benefits of street interfaces and green view rates in parks. However, current neuroscience research still predominantly focuses on feedback related to the characteristics of green spaces. Future studies should include more diverse types of community settings to fully explore the comprehensive healing potential of communities. Research should also investigate the mechanisms through which environmental features exert positive impacts on individuals via mediating variables. Interdisciplinary theoretical integration will be essential. Enhancing environments in ways that align with residents’ habits and preferences, and promoting spiritual and cultural healing, will be central themes in future research.