Across the world, many communities have been affected by conflict, violence and war. The impact of this suffering can vary enormously and ranges from political division to economic hard ship, and from infrastructure destruction to social fragmentation. No matter which lens is used to understand how conflict affects society, human suffering remains the common denominator. However, global definitions of peacebuilding and international practice do not sufficiently recognise the impact of violent conflict on psychosocial wellbeing, nor do they recognise that mental health and psychosocial support processes are essential and need to be integrated. The goal of this Special Issue is to profile a selection of relevant contemporary efforts aimed at bringing the fields of mental health and psychosocial support and peacebuilding closer together, and to make the case for the need for an integrated approach.

The contribution of the fields of mental health and psychosocial support and peacebuilding is critical to the repair of societies affected by war and violent conflict. Despite some advances in bringing the two fields closer together, the evidence base for the outcomes and impact of an integrated approach included both mental health and psychosocial support and peacebuilding is still very thin. The hypothesis for this literature review was that a combined approach would enhance the knowledge base and, therefore, foster the prospect of sustainable peace. The literature reviewed indicates that while there is an increasing awareness of the need to bring some of the knowledge and tools traditionally belonging to the field of mental health and psychosocial support into peacebuilding interventions (and vice versa), this is not yet practiced in a way that is fully integrated from the outset or is holistic on a systemic level. This study highlights the need for the development of a theoretical model that bridges both fields as a foundation for future research and practice.

The complex set of phenomena posed by societies affected by violence has prompted calls for integration and coordination between peacebuilding and psychosocial work. The ways in which psychosocial support interventions are implemented can contribute to, or impede, the peacebuilding process. In northern Uganda, a rise in cases of suicide, domestic violence and substance abuse has pointed to the pressing need to better understand the experiences and stressors of individuals and communities navigating post conflict life. Drawing on the perspectives of community leaders, traditional authorities, local government officials, and nongovernmental organisations, this article offers a critical analysis of mental health and psychosocial interventions in northern Uganda. It that demonstrates that psychosocial interventions have largely been: (1) short lived; (2) targeted specific groups at the expense of others; (3) failed to respond to the daily needs of the population; and (4) remained relatively disconnected from the wider post conflict recovery process. To address the full range of conditions affecting societies emerging from complex emergencies, psychosocial interventions must be responsive to the needs and changes that arise during the delicate war-to-peace transition.

Peacebuilding processes operate within a nexus of historical events, contemporary dynamics and future possibilities. This paper explores the possibilities presented by narrative based historical memory work in enabling an understanding of conflicting stories and perspectives needed to build an understanding of contemporary dynamics of a society or context. The narrative repair created by hearing contrasting stories has the potential to facilitate shifts from previously divisive and exclusionary modes of remembering to more collective ways of moving forward, with lower levels of enmity and violence. The personal insights, as well as the social and relational networks that can emerge out of this work, have the potential to support and undergird the more systemic dimensions of a peace process aimed at addressing legacies of violent conflict.

Restorative justice, when trauma informed, has a great potential to effectively contribute to sustainable peace in post conflict settings. An evidence based example of a programme illustrating such effect is community based sociotherapy in Rwanda. This article documents what this programme has achieved in terms of restorative justice, following the closure of Gacaca, the community based justice system that was in operation in Rwanda nationwide from 2005 to 2012. In total, 155 respondents to 23 focus group discussions and 39 individual interviewees, including former participants of sociotherapy, leaders on sector and district level and government representatives at national level, participated in outcome studies that inform this article. The majority of respondents indicated that sociotherapy generates a process of genuine healing and reconciliation, resulting in peacebuilding at family and community level, as well as wider social change. The challenge is how to scale-up sociotherapy interventions without losing trauma informed characteristics.

While much has been written in academia about trauma and truth as singular subjects in post conflict societies, there is a lack of research that investigates the relationship between these foci. This project investigated this underexplored link and uncovered themes that emerged through a rigorous literature review of existing research coupled with semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with professionals working in the fields of trauma and truth across Northern Ireland and South Africa. Two important thematic findings were revealed, which include the necessity of expanding the discussion of experiences with trauma in post conflict societies and how the ways in which truth is experienced by, or presented to, an individual may impact how one recovers from trauma. Both themes suggest important considerations that should be recognised in future discussions on the extent to which truth may dissipate trauma in societies attempting to move forward in the aftermath of violent conflict.

War, genocide, gender based violence, structural oppression and other forms of chronic violence and social upheaval can reveal and cultivate tremendous strength and resilience. They can also gravely harm people in body, mind and spirit, both individually and collectively. These harms can lead people to act in on self and act out against others, entrapping us in cycles of violence. Many strategies can assist in breaking free from cycles of violence and building resilience. Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience is one educational programme that offers a gateway for participants to: a) understand and destigmatise potential impacts of traumagenic events and b) develop life giving responses that meet human needs rather than escalate violence. This Field report details the programme's origins, practical and theoretical foundations, pedagogical approach and the components of a typical training, as well as selected results, challenges and questions for further research.

In view of the evolving discussion on bridging the mental health and psychosocial support and peacebuilding fields, this article proposes that they don't need to be bridged, but are already intrinsically interlinked. The approach and methodology of the International Association for Human Values is presented as a conceptual and practical model of integrated peacebuilding, both addressing a gap in peacebuilding as well as working complementary to traditional mental health and psychosocial support methods. This article will present an overview of several congruencies between the mental health and psychosocial support and peacebuilding fields, illustrated with practical examples from International Association for Human Values programmes from around the world. The author argues that sustainability of peacebuilding cannot happen without psychosocial peacebuilding: an approach that integrates the full range of psychosocial factors into peacebuilding including, but not limited to, the integration of mental health and psychosocial support. She concludes that as an integrated field, we can move forward to the full and joint aspiration of both mental health and psychosocial support and peacebuilding, towards optimal health and positive peace.

The nongovernmental organisation Snaga Žene, which means ‘the power of woman’, provides psychological, social, medical, educational and legal assistance to refugee women who have returned to Srebrenica after the massacre in 2002, which claimed the lives of their husbands, sons and/or brothers. Snaga Ǘene has developed a multidimensional, ecological model that includes five important aspects in the lives of every person: 1) psychological health; 2) social aspect and position within the wider social community; 3) health and health care; 4) legal rights; and 5) economic wellbeing, as well as employment and income. Women's groups support their participants in establishing psychological balance, strengthening family ties and ties within the society, improving their economic situation and their efforts to better fit into daily social events. This historical concept, truth telling, fact finding, bottom-up approach has led to the respect of women from both national groups. Therefore, this can serve as a good example for reconciliation and restoration of trust for other post conflict societies. The women have created strong bonds, often through great mutual losses, mutual experience of trauma, mutual regional belonging and shared traditional values.