Practitioner perspectives on integrating mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) and peacebuilding: a qualitative study

War leaves deep scars that are not always visible. While the physical destruction of buildings and borders is easy to see, the psychological damage inflicted on communities often remains hidden, yet it can be just as destructive to the future. When people live through violence, they carry heavy burdens of fear, loss, and mistrust. These feelings do not just stay inside an individual; they ripple outward, eroding the relationships between neighbors and fueling the divisions that keep conflicts alive. For years, two separate groups of experts have tried to heal these wounds. One group focuses on mental health and psychosocial support, helping individuals cope with trauma and anxiety. The other group focuses on peacebuilding, working to negotiate treaties, rebuild institutions, and bring communities together. Recently, major international organizations have argued that these two fields must work together, suggesting that you cannot build lasting peace without addressing the psychological wounds of war, and you cannot heal deep trauma without a safe, peaceful environment. However, while the idea of combining these efforts sounds logical on paper, it is unclear how it actually works when people are trying to do it in the middle of a crisis.

To understand how this integration works in reality, a team of researchers from universities in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan conducted a study by listening to the people doing the work. They interviewed thirty-two practitioners—twenty-four women and eight men—who work for the United Nations, governments, and non-governmental organizations. These workers are based in six different countries, including South Sudan, Indonesia, and Japan, and they have spent at least a year designing or running programs that deal with either mental health, peacebuilding, or both. The researchers asked them to describe their experiences, the challenges they face, and how they see the connection between healing minds and building peace. The goal was not to test a theory in a laboratory, but to learn from the practical wisdom of those on the ground.

The practitioners shared a powerful insight that challenges a common assumption: mental health problems are not just a result of war; they are also a cause of it. Many workers described seeing how unhealed trauma can sabotage peace negotiations. They recounted stories where a negotiator, hearing a specific word or seeing a gesture, would suddenly react as if the violence were happening again, unable to focus on the present moment. These reactions can turn a calm discussion into a heated argument, derailing efforts to make peace. The workers argued that peace processes often fail because they ignore this psychological reality. They believe that peacebuilders need to understand how trauma affects the human mind and that mental health specialists should be involved from the very beginning of designing a peace plan, not just brought in later to fix problems.

However, bringing these two fields together is not simple, and the researchers found that the biggest hurdle is a gap in understanding between the individual and the community. Mental health work often focuses on treating a single person, while peacebuilding focuses on the group or the society. The practitioners explained that the most difficult part of the problem happens in the space between these two levels. For example, a child born after a war might never have seen a bullet, yet they grow up knowing exactly who to fear because of the stories their parents tell and the atmosphere in their community. This kind of distress is not easily diagnosed in a single person, nor is it easily fixed by changing a law for a whole country. The workers felt that current methods do not have a good way to address this middle ground where individual pain and collective memory mix. They realized that you cannot simply fix the individual and then fix the community, because the two are constantly shaping each other.

Another major challenge the workers face is the fear of causing harm. In their line of work, "containment" is a key skill, which means being able to hold space for someone's intense emotions without being overwhelmed by them. Many practitioners expressed anxiety about asking people to talk about their trauma. They worried that if they opened the door to painful memories without having the right support systems in place, the situation could spiral out of control, leaving people feeling worse than before. They emphasized that peacebuilders are not therapists and should not try to diagnose or treat mental illness. Instead, their role is to create a safe environment and know when to stop or when to bring in a professional. This requires a high level of competence and organizational support, such as supervision and care for the workers themselves, which is often missing in peacebuilding projects.

The study also revealed that social stigma, particularly regarding gender, acts as a significant barrier. In many places, admitting to mental health struggles is seen as a sign of weakness, a view often reinforced by religious or cultural norms. This stigma is gendered: seeking help is sometimes viewed as a "women's issue," which leads political leaders to dismiss it as unimportant. At the same time, men often face even greater pressure to hide their pain, making it taboo for them to seek support. To get around this, practitioners have developed clever strategies. Instead of using medical terms that might scare people away, they talk about mental health in the context of community well-being or social cohesion. They work with trusted figures, like religious leaders, to deliver messages in a way that feels safe and acceptable to the community, effectively weaving the need for support into the fabric of daily life.

Finally, the researchers found that the way projects are funded often works against the nature of healing. Donors who provide the money usually want to see quick, measurable results, such as a signed treaty or a new law passed within a year. However, recovering from deep psychological trauma is a slow, uneven process that can take many years and may involve setbacks. The pressure to show fast results can force organizations to focus on things that are easy to count, like the number of people trained, rather than the harder-to-measure changes in trust or safety. The workers warned that if integration becomes just a box to check for funding, it will lose its substance. They argued that the systems for giving money and judging success need to change to match the long, non-linear reality of human recovery.

The study concludes that the debate is no longer about whether mental health and peacebuilding should be combined, but about how to do it safely and effectively. The researchers found that successful integration depends on a chain of conditions: recognizing that trauma drives conflict, creating practical tools to address the link between individuals and communities, training workers to handle emotional risks, respecting cultural norms to reduce stigma, and aligning funding with the long timeline of healing. These conditions are all connected; if one is missing, the whole effort can fail. The findings suggest that for peace to last, we must redesign how we think about conflict, moving beyond just fixing broken systems to also healing the human minds that live within them.