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Establishing a mental health system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Rita Giacaman ,
Neil Arya  and
Derek Summerfield
Rita Giacaman
Affiliation:
Institute of Community and Public Health, Birzeit University, Ramallah, West Bank
Neil Arya
Affiliation:
McMaster University, Canada
Derek Summerfield
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK
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What is ‘mental health’ during the societal crisis and upheaval occasioned by war? Perhaps the primary psychological effect of war on victims generally is through their witnessing the destruction of a social world embodying their history, identity, values and roles of everyday life. Such suffering has largely to be resolved collectively, in this same social world, albeit one which has been intentionally weakened. Thus, as the World Health Organization and other authorities confirm, the major thrust of humanitarian interventions must be towards the depleted social fabric and its institutions, for herein lie the sources of resilience and capacity for recovery for all (Kawachi & Berkman, 2000). Beyond that, history has shown that social or political reform is the best medicine, and for victims of oppressive violence this means acknowledgement and justice (Summerfield, 2002).

Type
Special paper
Information
International Psychiatry , Volume 2 , Issue 9 , July 2005 , pp. 16 - 18
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2005

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