Terrorism as a process: A critical review of Moghaddam’s ‘‘Staircase to Terrorism’’

This study reviews empirical evidence for Moghaddam’s model “Staircase to Terrorism,” which portrays terrorism as a process of six consecutive steps culminating in terrorism. An extensive literature search, where 2,564 publications on terrorism were screened, resulted in 38 articles which were subject to further analysis. The results showed that while most of the theories and processes linked to Moghaddam’s model are supported by empirical evidence, the proposed transitions between the different steps are not.

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EMDR versus stabilisation in traumatised asylum seekers and refugees: results of a pilot study

At the end of 2008, there were 16 million asylum seekers and refugees worldwide (UNHCR, 2009). Many refugees are exposed to potentially traumatising situations during several phases of their journey: surviving war or organised violence, including imprisonment and torture; becoming fugitives; leaving their home country, often to stay in refugee camps before being granted a right to stay in a country of settlement; and experiencing the stresses of resettlement and discrimination (Silove, Tarn, Bowles, & Reid, 1991).

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Symptom attribution and presentation in general practice after an extreme life event

Background. A serious life event is likely to shape attributions relating to symptoms experienced afterwards. While they may play an important role in prognosis and seeking care, such perceptions have hardly been studied among survivors of a disaster.

Objective. To investigate the association between self-reported health problems that have been attributed to an extreme life event and the symptoms presented to GPs.

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The dispossessed: diary of a psychiatrist at the Chad/Sudan border (2004)

While working for an international humanitarian organisation in the Sudanese refugee camps at the Chad border, British child psychiatrist Lynne Jones kept a personal diary. In this diary, she reflects on the practical challenges and moral dilemmas facing a mental health practitioner working in this difficult context.

Keywords: Chad, ethics, mental health care, people with severe mental disorders, Sudanese refugees

(In order to protect confidentiality, personal details of agencies, colleagues and patients have been altered.)

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Building up mental health services from scratch: experiences from East Sri Lanka

The author describes his experiences as a psychiatrist in East Sri Lanka where he was involved in building mental health and psychosocial services in the context of war and disaster He stresses the necessity of creating patient and family friendly services, and advocates for the principle of distributing basic services over the whole region, instead of providing a highly specialised service that most of the people who need help cannot reach.

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Integrating mental health into existing systems of care during and after complex humanitarian emergencies: rethinking the experience

This concluding paper of the Intervention Special Issue on integrating mental health care into health systems during and after complex emergencies summarises the main findings and conclusions of each of the programmes presented. This paper further integrates these findings into a common framework in order to extract key factors and recommendations on actions that can be taken, and those to avoid, to enable humanitarian emergencies to be transformed into opportunities in the psychosocial field.

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Iraq and mental health policy: a post invasion analysis

The Iraq war, and the subsequent involvement of various stakeholders in the post conflict reconstruction of the health sector, presented an opportunity to learn about mental health policy development, challenges and obstacles within a post conflict context in 2003. This paper documents and explores mental health policy in post invasion Iraq, using qualitative methods and a health policyframework that analyses context, content and process.

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Psychosocial assistance and decentralised mental health care in post conflict Burundi 2000 - 2008

In 2000 the nongovernmental organisation (NGO) HealthNet TPO started mental health and psychosocial support services in Burundi, a country that has been severely affected by civil war. Within a time frame of eight years, a wide range of mental health and psychosocial services were established, covering large parts of the country. During the programme period the NGO activities shifted from the delivery of direct services to capacity building activities aimed at embedding psychiatric services and psychosocial assistance within existing local health services and social systems.

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Integrating mental health into primary care in Africa: the case of Equatorial Guinea

The Spanish Cooperation, through the nongovernmental organisation Sanitary Religious Federation and the financing of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation conducted an assessment of the mental health care system in Equatorial Guinea in 2009. There was no specific mental health policy in place, and noformalised mental health care system. A National Mental Health Policy has recently been approved, and an implementation plan was made by the government and nongovernmental organisations.

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Scaling up of mental health and trauma support among war affected communities in northern Uganda: lessons learned

In 2008, the local nongovernmental organisation TPO Uganda and the Uganda Ministry of Health began a project aimed of improving the availability of mental health services in three districts in Northern Uganda.

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