Psychosocial adjustment and coping in the post-conflict setting

Abstract

Individual and collective responses to trauma influence the way scholars and clinicians think about the stress response and the survivor network. Stress-coping concepts are integral to the manner in which individuals and communities cope with trauma in post-conflict societies. The salience of social support and psychological resilience, as additional concepts through which work with survivors can be approached, offer opportunities for facilitative intervention. This chapter provides a review of the literature addressing individual and collective responses to trauma, and non-adaptive responses to trauma such as stress, anxiety, and mood disorders. This chapter also provides a review of current concepts related to coping and social support and the manner in which these concepts have been characterized in post-conflict settings. Finally, this chapter concludes with considerations of the manner in which the concepts of individual and communal resilience relate to the trauma membrane and encourage thinking about capacity building that supports a healing environment for those in post-conflict societies. © 2010 Springer-Verlag New York.