Youth, Peace and Security: Psychosocial Support and Societal Transformation

"Youth, Peace and Security:  Psychosocial Support and Societal Transformation" published by Brandon Hamber; Denis Martinez; Marlies Stappers; David Taylor; and Thomas Unger is now available online.

This paper explores the key issue of mental health and psycho-social services (MHPSS), from a youth-specific perspective. Drawing on the assertions and recommendations of the YPS Progress Study, and coupled with the increasing attention to MHPSS within the sustaining peace agenda, this policy brief pays special attention to the role of youth-specific psycho-social services as a vital dimension of transformative youth resilience, essential to both addressing the consequences and prevention of violent conflict.

This is a report commissioned by Interpeace for their Outside the Box: Amplifying youth voices and views on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) policy and practice series.

Download the Report

Watch a Video Summary of the Report

It’s time we stopped kidding ourselves: ‘new normal’ is abnormal

I have published a new piece in Belfast Telegraph. 

In my work dealing with the impact of political violence, a constant challenge is reminding people that when addressing survivors’ needs during times of conflict, it is the social context that is often the primary stressor.

For example, as much as therapy for victims of conflict is useful, its value is limited if the conflict’s legacy persists and the social environment is destroyed. You also cannot think about conflict without understanding that it has differential impacts. In Northern Ireland, for example, the neighbourhoods with the highest conflict death rate are those with the highest levels of poverty.

When it comes to addressing the mental health impact of Covid-19, it seems we have a similar situation. We are acting as if the pandemic is only a medical problem, a behavioural issue (wear your mask, wash your hands, socially distance) and finally, a psychological question of coping mentally.

“Coronavirus — baby and mom” by https://www.vperemen.com  CC BY 2.0

The socio-environmental parts of the pandemic are under-emphasised, not to mention the political.

Yet, for many, their mental health in times of Covid-19 is not an issue of merely individual psychological coping mechanisms.

Mental well-being is undermined, for example, by losing your job, physical and psychological violence in the home during lockdowns, having a disability and living in cramped or unhealthy accommodation, among others.

Even those of us living in privilege are dealing with caring responsibilities, home-schooling, health issues and family and friends dying of Covid-19. All this in a context of 24-hour televised suffering and the Government failing to manage the process effectively.

Even for those lucky enough to have a good job, stress has been mounting over time, not decreasing. For many, the work experience (run from their homes) is like plugging holes in a sinking ship while continually eyeing the lifeboats.

Not to mention the daily struggles of healthcare and key workers on the frontline. There is no new normal, it is all profoundly abnormal. Many are confusing enforced haphazard adaptation with normalisation.

Of course, there are many individual actions that can help us cope: maintaining a routine; taking exercise; working on relaxation exercises such as mindfulness; getting plenty of sleep; ensuring you still connect with other people and, importantly, managing news and social media intake. I have used some of these myself. Problematically though, such interventions assume a standardised environmental context. Advising on actions such as relaxation, exercise and routinisation assumes you live in a safe, predictable and comfortable environment.

But like so much individual mental health advice, although well-meaning and helpful to some, it is acontextual.

Telling people to take care of their mental health while not talking about real-world needs is hollow.

Let’s stop pretending that bolstering individual psychological coping mechanisms can replace the need for environmental changes for some.

It is time for mental health professionals, employers and the Government to ask what people really need to improve their mental health during this pandemic. The answers they will get are not what they would want to hear.

The stress of those working while home-schooling and caring will be reduced by less work, not an online stress management workshop.

Some need proper working conditions and equipment. Others need professional guidance on maximising space in cramped homes and then their employer, or the state, supporting these changes.

In truth, an extra room in some homes would change some children’s lives more profoundly than anything else. Fixing the damp in some homes and ensuring adequate heating, let alone guaranteeing some families have enough food, would significantly impact on mental health.

Serious interventions such as removing an abusive partner, addressing alcoholism, loneliness, or those living with a disability in lockdown may be needed in other cases.

This may sound like a tall order, but the truth is real-life change is needed for many if we claim to want to take mental health seriously.

If we fuse home and work (as well as school and tertiary educational) life, we cannot hive off one from the other.

The realities Covid-19 has forced upon us and the problems it has aggravated are not something we only have to come to terms within our heads.

Psychological and social well-being are indivisible. What we are dealing with is a cocktail of problems at the intersection of Covid-19 health-related issues, the impact of lockdowns and social distancing, societal and political fragmentation and disparities in social and psychological need and support.

As hard as it is to consider in these gloomy times, we are being confronted with a reality that is beyond a short-term health crisis.

Instead of living in the hope of the vaccine, the next phase of pandemic management should target the diversity of need recognising how inequalities profoundly shape such conditions.

The advantage of such an approach is that post-pandemic recovery will be more sustainable and healthier for all. Otherwise, just as the legacy of conflict persists when we only remove the symptom of direct violence and do not address the underlying dynamics, varying levels of suffering will linger for years.

Published by Brandon Hamber, Belfast Telegraph, 23 March 2021. Also available on Medium.

Seminar: Trauma-Informed Approach

The second seminar in the Dealing with the Past series was hosted online on 18 May 2020, with some 250 people joining online. I chaired this important online event.

The seminar was entitled "The need for a trauma-informed approach to address the conflict's legacy" and was delivered by Professor Siobhan O'Neill on 18 May 2020. In this seminar Professor O'Neill presents the evidence on the transgenerational impact of trauma, and highlights the importance of a "trauma-informed" approach to addressing the conflict's legacy to protect the population from further harm.

The seminar is part of the Transitional Justice Institute (TJI) and INCORE, in partnership with Healing Through Remembering and the John Hume and Thomas P. O'Neill Chair in Peace, online seminar series. The seminar was chaired by Professor Brandon Hamber.

Psychosocial Issues and Peacebuilding Paper

Community Meeting, Colombia (Credit: Brandon Hamber)

Today I presented a short paper entitled "Mind the past to build the future: Systematic attention for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) inpeacebuilding efforts". The presentation was part of a member state consultation hosted by Stabilisation and Humanitarian Aid Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dutch Government. The initiative is run by the Dutch Government to find opportunities to enable international bodies, tasked with building sustainable peace, to integrate psychosocial aspects in all stages of their work.

In the member state consultation I was asked to give a brief insight into the psychosocial dynamics that need to be analysed and addressed when working on the peace-conflict continuum, and the value-added of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) in peacebuilding efforts. Also, to focus on the importance of ongoing efforts to integrate MHPSS in peacebuilding. I based my remarks here on a chapter written for a large-scale research project into psychosocial issues and peacebuilding carried out by myself and colleagues.

You can download my paper here.

Survivor centred, trauma-informed approach

The government launched a consultation on "Addressing the Legacy of Northern Ireland's Past" earlier in 2018 with a closing date of October 2018.

As part of the responses to the consultation Professor Siobhan O'Neill and myself made a submission on "The need for a victim and survivor centred, trauma-informed approach". To read the submission, download here.

Image from CVSNI public information graphics

Keynote: Psychosocial Issues and Peacebuilding

From the 6th to the 8th of May 2015, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (South Africa) and the War Trauma Foundation (Netherlands) hosted a conference attended by 52 individuals from 15 countries around the world that explored the nexus between psychosocial needs, practice and peacebuilding in the aftermath of conflict.

 Based on years of experience in the field of peacebuilding (by IJR and its partners) and a long trajectory of developing, implementing and analysing mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) projects around the world (by WTF and its partners), the two organisations partnered in bringing together academics and practitioners from both fields to explore ways in which the nexus between MHPSS and peacebuilding could be better understood.

As such, the programme was structured in such a way that practitioners could share their experiences (best practice and challenges), academics could put forward their existing research and the group as a whole could explore ways in which the two fields could begin to be brought closer together in order to contribute to the development of more sustainable and holistic interventions.

 The full conference report is available here.

 To watch my keynote address at the conference play below.

Psychosocial Perspectives on Peacebuilding

I am delighted to announce that my new book edited with Elizabeth Gallagher is now out, Psychosocial Perspectives on Peacebuilding.

The book Psychosocial Perspectives on Peacebuilding offers a template for those dealing with the

aftermath of armed conflict to look at peacebuilding through a psychosocial lens. This Volume, and the case studies that are in it, starts from the premise that armed conflict and the political violence that flows from it, are deeply contextual and that in dealing with the impact of armed conflict, context matters. The book argues for a conceptual shift, in which psychosocial practices are not merely about treating individuals and groups with context and culturally sensitive methods and approaches: the contributors argue that such interventions and practices should in themselves shape social change. This is of critical importance because the psychosocial method continually highlights how the social context is one of the primary causes of individual psychological distress.

The chapters in this book describe experiences within very different contexts, including Guatemala, Jerusalem, Indian Kashmir, Mozambique, Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The common thread between the case studies is that they each show how psychosocial interventions and practices can influence the peacebuilding environment and foster wider social change.

Psychosocial Perspectives on Peacebuilding is essential reading for social and peace psychologists, as well as for students and researchers in the field of conflict and peace studies, and for psychosocial practitioners and those working in post-conflict areas for NGO’s.

Interested in a copy, you can buy from Amazon, or directly from Springer.

You can also get updates on the book by visiting the Facebook Page.

How Can Clergy Address the Legacy of the Troubles?

I'm speaking at this "How Can Clergy Address the Legacy of the Troubles? Conference", Wednesday 26th February 2014 in Brackaville Parish Hall, Coalisland (Full Programme). My topic is "The legacy of ‘The Troubles?". The question is what angle to take? So may different ways to think about this question: youth, sectarianism, invisible legacies, mental health, victims, legacies of violence, economic impact, embedded systems of practice (like segregated education), and of course "whatever you say nothing"....

Transformar las sociedades despues de la violencia politica

I am delighted to announced that the Spanish translation of my book "Transforming Societies after Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health" is now available.

The blurb in Spanish notes:

Este libro aborda el papel de la salud mental en la justicia durante las transiciones. El lugar principal lo ocupan los y las supervivientes de la violencia y sus problemas y, sobre todo, el relato de cómo el proceso individual (micro) de sobrellevar una atrocidad se relaciona con el proceso político (macro) de gestionar el pasado. Parte de la premisa de que la forma de tratar el impacto de la violencia política es inseparable del contexto social. Se intenta demostrar que para muchos supervivientes de una traumatización política extrema, la curación está directamente relacionada con los conceptos interdependientes de verdad, justicia y reparaciones, y también con sus propios intentos de configurar la sociedad. Este enfoque amplio con respecto a la salud mental espera promover un replanteamiento útil tanto para los y las profesionales de la salud mental como para los y las que trabajan en la justicia en períodos de transición. ISBN: 978-8472905375 Edicions Bellaterra 2011

You can purchase the book on Amazon (UK) or Amazon (Spain).

My book launch in New York

My book launch in New York on 11 November 2009 went really well in New York. A "conversation" about the book with about 50 people. Also inputs from Graeme Simpson, Ruti Teitel, Alastair Ager. Chaired and organised by Jack Saul (thanks Jack). Great to also see some CSVR people.

New York Launch: Transforming Societies After Political Violence

My new book Transforming Societies After Political Violence will be launched in New York on 11 November 2009 at Columbia University. For details see Download invitation.

Transforming Societies after Political Violence

My book Transforming Societies After Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation and Mental Health, now published by Springer in New York.

Transforming Societies after Political Violence offers a template for those tasked with providing truth, justice, reconciliation, and healing. This interdisciplinary study identifies complex relationships between recovery from political violence and the psychological processes that accompany widespread social change, showing how these can be integrated to strengthen both individual and society. Author Brandon Hamber draws on his extensive experience in South Africa and comparative examples from elsewhere to examine the centrality of mental health issues in transitional justice, and the social, cultural, and identity issues involved in meeting the needs of victims. In discussing reparations (what the author terms "repairing the irreparable"), the power of ambivalence, and especially concepts of closure, he eloquently sets out professionals’ roles in helping survivors move beyond the toxic past without covering it up or becoming mired in it. ISBN: 978-0-387-89426-3, Springer 2009

Available

Springer (Publisher)
Springer Online
Amazon (UK)
Amazon (US)

Endorsements
How to victims heal? We should not be too quick to presume. Those seeking truth and justice often prioritize victims’ interests – but without always fully understanding what those interests and needs are, or how different victims may recover in very different ways. Based on fifteen years of working with and listening to victims and survivors, Brandon Hamber helps us better understand the mental health backdrop to atrocity and recovery. With plentiful, poignant stories, and clear policy recommendations, this book should help shape – and greatly improve – future endeavors to confront unimaginable memories and pain (Priscilla Hayner, International Centre for Transitional Justice and author of Unspeakable Truths: confronting state terror and atrocity)

Brandon Hamber nails this tricky subject with humility, insight, learned insight, and golden recommendations..... if you are interested in how humans try to grapple with the consequences of man’s brutality to man, and ultimately the truth, read it! (Thulani Grenville-Grey, former South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Mental Health Specialist)

Brandon Hamber's experience in multiple sites of transitional justice work, and his rare ability to bridge the academic and theoretical with the practical and logistical, ensures this publication is an extremely valuable contribution and a must read to those working in this fast evolving field (Piers Pigou, former South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Investigator and Director of the South African History Archive).

Brandon Hamber has written a challenging and good interdisciplinary book, which will not only be helpful to those dealing with mental health issues during transitions from conflict, but also to lawyers and those concerned with conflict resolution more generally (Christine Bell, Director, Institute of Transitonal Justice, University of Ulster)

How countries recover from political atrocity is a question that has confronted dozens of regimes around the world for decades. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is an iconic symbol of what for some is a profound achievement in restructuring a “peaceful society.” In Transforming Societies After Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health Dr. Brandon Hamber applies his many years of experience both within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and beyond it to a careful analysis of the complex issues – legal, historical, social, psychological - embedded in such a process. It is his astute attention to these complexities that make his book so rich. Hamber says that “if the TRC process and working with the victims appearing before it taught me anything it was that the psychological life of the survivor of extreme violence is cut through by this complexity." His work is clear testimony to that statement Transforming Societies After Political Violence is a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, scholars and policy makers. If you read one book about countries emerging from their violent pasts, it should be Dr. Brandon Hamber’s Transforming Societies After Political Violence. I will rely on this volume in my ongoing work and I predict it will become a definitive text in this area (Nina K. Thomas, Ph.D., ABPP, Chair, Specialization in Trauma and Disaster Studies; NYU Postdoctoral program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Co-Chair, Relational Orientation; NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis)

Hamber brings an acute clinical sensibility and sophisticated research mind to a complex problem: state handling of reconciliation after a catastrophic upheaval. … his main focus in this book is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process. … a must read for any psychologist working with trauma survivors, especially postconflict trauma survivors. It calls upon a rich literature–from psychoanalysis … to trial transcripts of commissions; it integrates all these sources to provide a truly unique contribution to the psychology of trauma." (Don Dutton, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 54 (47/3), November, 2009)

Bush launches controversial mental health plan

Jeane Lenzer writes in the British Medical Journal this week that "President Bush announced on 26 July that his administration has begun implementing the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health to "improve mental health services and support for people of all ages with mental illness" through comprehensive screening. The plan states that schools are in a "key position" to screen the "52 million students and six million adults who work at the schools" and includes recommendations for screening preschool children. Mr Bush's announcement comes after new reports showing that increasing numbers of toddlers and children are being prescribed amphetamines, anti-depressants, and antipsychotic drugs. Concern that widespread screening will only increase the number of young people taking drugs has triggered criticism of the plan. Dr Daniel Fisher, one of the 22 commissioners responsible for writing the final report for the president, said that widespread screening—at a time when medical education was "geared to the biomedical model and teachers want to get kids fixed"—could result in greater numbers of children being given "a label, a diagnosis, and a medication. What troubles me a little bit," said Dr Fisher, "is that mental health will continue to be used as a substitute for addressing the social, cultural, and economic needs of children." More...

Mental Health in Situations of Political Violence and Disaster

Currently, I am in Madrid teaching at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid for the GAC-Grupo de Acción Comunitaria which is part of the Centro de Recursos en Salud Mental y Derechos Humanos . I thought it may be useful to highlight the course offered by the group, which, to my knowledge, is very unique. It is entitled "Salud Mental en Situaciones de Violencia Política y Catástrofe" (Mental Health in Situations of Political Violence and Disaster), which is very impressive in its reach and courses offered.