Re-thinking recovery in post-conflict settings: Supporting the mental well-being of communities in Colombia

ABSTRACT

Addressing mental health needs is a central focus of the Colombian Government’s framework for socio-political reconstruction following over 60 years of conflict. Informed by WHO standards, country efforts utilise biopsychosocial models that prioritise individual psychological and psychiatric conditions. However, increasing scrutiny of the deployment of Western approaches to mental health and recovery in the global south suggests a need to explore the best route to improving mental health outcomes. Our research contributes to these debates through a qualitative study of local understandings of mental health recovery related concepts among internally displaced persons in Colombia. Analysis of focus groups with 40 internally displaced men and women established definitions for emotional distress and recovery as parallel processes linked to the fracture and rebuilding of social worlds and family life. Definitions were shaped heavily by cultural, political, economic and legal contexts of everyday survival, often linked to experiences of structural and symbolic forms of violence. We conclude that a locally informed mental health recovery model that stretches beyond individual experiences of mental ill-health to promote ideas of collective social change would be best suited to addressing mental health needs of internally displaced groups in Colombia. Implications for practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental health
• post-conflict
• Colombia
• community mental health competencies
• recovery

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the community who has engaged with us on a journey towards improving their mental health and trusted us with their stories of struggle and survival. We would like to acknowledge the invaluable support of our research assistants, particularly Paula Moreno, Mónica González and Maria Alejandra Fino, who helped with translation and transcription of data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The NCHM was created from law 1448 of 2011 (the victim’s law) with a mandate to guarantee the non-repetition of Colombia’s violent past through the construction of collective memory of atrocities for all members of the country.

2 This process was referred to as the murder of ‘false positives’

3 Colombia Department of Health and Social Protection

4 Specific details will not be provided in order to protect the identity of our participants.

5 Fees for accessing services were subsidised through project funding to reduce financial barriers to immediate access to psychological support.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Universidad de La Sabana under [grant number PSI-65-2017].