Invisible Injuries: Responding to the Mental Health and Psychosocial Impacts of Armed Conflict

For the past decade, understanding of the severe impacts of armed conflict on mental health and well being has grown, but programming has lagged and the evaluation of the effectiveness of various interventions has been even further behind.  Problems have also included inadequate attention to the varying needs of different populations and consequent ‘one size fits all’ approaches, failure to take into account of the experience of people with pre-existing mental health problems, lack of assessment of program outcomes, and lack of respect for the human rights of people with mental illness mistreated before the conflict.

This program provided an overview of what we know about the mental health and psychosocial impacts of armed conflict. The panel discussed implications for programming, policy, evaluation, and human rights, and how that current knowledge can be put into practice.

Speakers

• Michael Wessells
  Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
  Co-Chair of the IASC (UN-NGO) Task Force on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings
• Judith Bass
  Assistant Professor, Department of Mental Health, Applied Mental Health Research Group, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Eric Rosenthal
  Executive Director, Mental Disability Rights International
• Leonard Rubenstein, Moderator
  Chair, Health and Peacebuilding Working Group, U.S. Institute of Peace