MSc International Disaster Management and Humanitarian Response - January Intake
Year of entry: 2024
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Course unit details:
Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Humanitarian Crises (online)
| Unit code | HCRI70290 |
|---|---|
| Credit rating | 15 |
| Unit level | FHEQ level 7 – master's degree or fourth year of an integrated master's degree |
| Teaching period(s) | Full year |
| Offered by | Humanitarian Conflict Response Institute |
| Available as a free choice unit? | No |
Overview
The course will enable students to critically interrogate the norms, practices and approaches to mental health and psychosocial support in humanitarian crises from a social science perspective. Students are therefore not required to have any prior medical knowledge. Instead, the course considers the social determinants of mental health in situations of natural hazards, conflict, displacement and violence. The first half of the module considers the conceptualisations of mental health from a western and non-western perspective, whilst the second half looks at how psychosocial support is created in practice from top-down NGO interventions to community-led approaches.
Aims
This unit aims to provide students with a detailed understanding of a currently under researched and seldom taught area of humanitarian practice. The consequences of humanitarian crises are often seen in physical terms, whether through injuries or damage to infrastructures, yet the mental trauma can often have the most damaging and long-term consequences on both victims and aid workers. Therefore, the unit aims to bring these issues to the fore to ensure that future humanitarian scholarship and practice can no longer ignore such an important area of humanitarianism.
Learning outcomes
- The student will have learnt how mental health is defined and understood in various settings by different actors, whether humanitarian or communities.
- The student recognise the impact of different psychosocial approaches and be able to critically discuss its implications for the target patients and populations
- The student will be able to suggest ways forward for psychosocial response in future humanitarian crises.
Knowledge and understanding
- Gain knowledge of the various understandings and conceptualisations of mental health in the Global North and Global South
- Understand the implications of humanitarian crises on mental health and the multitude of consequences that may ensue.
- Critically engage with the practices of psychosocial support from different perspectives and learn from bad and good practice in the past.
Intellectual skills
- Critically interrogate the literature on social science perspectives of mental health and psychosocial support and have touched on the medical literature.
- Develop a critical understanding of the way differences between western scholarship and interventions in the field (whether in the Global North or Global South).
- Compare and contrast psychosocial support interventions in different contexts and crises.
- Critically reflect on alternative interventions and approaches as practiced by individuals rather than organisations.
Practical skills
- Understand the basics of medical mental health definitions
- Be able to translate conceptualisations of mental health to different arenas
- Verbally present on case studies of mental health and psychosocial support
- Have ideas for alternative approaches to mental health, such as music and drama for future use.
- Write a critical essay demonstrating research skills on this topic in various humanitarian settings.
Transferable skills and personal qualities
- Have more experience and knowledge of mental health than average Masters level graduates who wish to enter the field of aid work.
- Able to communicate the complexities of mental health to a variety of audience
- Develop a more human approach to humanitarian response
Assessment methods
Discussion Board - 10%
Presentation - 15%
Essay - 75%
Feedback methods
Brief responses to discussion board posts | Formative & summative |
Written presentation feedback | Formative & summative |
Written feedback on essay | Summative |
Recommended reading
Breslau, J. 2004. Cultures of trauma: Anthropological Views of Posttraumatic Stress disorders in International Health. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry. 28 (2): 113 -126.
Cardozo, et al. (2005) ‘The Mental Health of Expatriate and Kosovar Albanian Humanitarian Aid Workers’, Disasters, 29:2, 152-170.
De Jong, Joop. T.V.M. 2005. Commentary: Deconstructing Critiques of the Internationalisation of PTSD. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry. 29, pp. 361 – 370.
Galea. S, Nandi, A. & Viahov, D. 2005. The Epidemiology of Post-traumatic stress disorder after disasters. American Journal of Epidemiology. Vol. 27, (1), pp. 78 – 91.
Giorgia, D. (2014) ‘The Psychological Impact of Working in post-conflict environments: A personal account of intersectional traumatisation’, Journal of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Conflict Affected Areas, 12:1, 91-94.
Henry, D. 2006. Violence and the Body: Somatic Expressions of Trauma and Vulnerability during War. Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Vol. 20. (3) pp. 379-398.
Johnson, H. & Thompson, A. 2008. The development and Maintenance of PTSD in civilian adult survivors of war trauma and torture: a review. Clinical Psychology Review. Vol. 28, pp. 36 -47.
Whiteley, R. (2015) ‘Global Mental Health: Concepts, conflicts and controversies’, Epidemiology an