The social conditions of war and conflict shape the landscape of mental health for those affected by violence, persecution, and displacement. The episode, hosted by Centre Research Assistant Milena Wuerth, considers how systems of funding and hierarchies of expertise shape how mental health is defined in humanitarian interventions. Our guests share personal, clinical, and academic insights that reveal the many layers within dominant concepts of ‘trauma’. Finally, they suggest ways to make research more equitable, sustainable and representative of lived experience for those enduring or fleeing violent conflict.
Milena Wuerth joined King’s College London in January 2022 as a Research Assistant on the Together to Transform: A mutual learning platform to develop a social paradigm for global mental health. Milena holds a BA in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics and is currently pursuing a MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Onwuzurike Ogan is a Master’s student at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and works as a consultant psychiatrist for the Nigerian Ministry of Defence.
Thurayya Zreik is a qualitative mental health researcher in mental health and has worked as a consultant for NGOs including the ICRC and War Child Holland and for Lebanon’s National Mental Health Program.
Doerte Bemme is a lecturer in Society and Mental Health at King’s College London, and Tessa Roberts is a post-doctoral research fellow for the Centre for Society and Mental Health at King’s College London. They are joint Principal investigators of the Together to Transform project, a mutual learning platform to develop a social paradigm for global mental health.
To learn more about the Together to Transform, please visit our website: www.together2transform.org
For more information about the GOAL project and similar research, visit the website of LSHTM’s Centre for Global Chronic Conditions: https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/centres/centre-global-chronic-conditions
Follow the Centre on Twitter @LSHTM_CGCC
Read more about how to implement co-production principles in academic research, authored by Thurayya’s colleauges at LSHTM: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354161201_Research_as_usual_in_humanitarian_settings_Equalising_power_in_academic-NGO_research_partnerships_through_co-production
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