Mental health, social distress and political oppression: the case of the occupied Palestinian territory.

This paper presents a brief history of Palestinian mental health care, a discussion of the current status of mental health and health services in the occupied Palestinian territory, and a critique of the biomedical Western-led discourse as it relates to the mental health needs of Palestinians. Medicalising distress and providing psychological therapies for Palestinians offer little in the way of alleviating the underlying causes of ongoing collective trauma. This paper emphasises the importance of separating clinical responses to mental illness from the public health response to mass political violation and distress.

Violence and adolescent mental health in the occupied Palestinian territory: a contextual approach.

During the past decade, the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University has focused on youth psychosocial mental health research with special attention given to protective factors and forms of resilience adopted by people coping with extraordinary and violent times. The authors take a critical view of the predominantly biomedical interventions adopted by humanitarian aid agencies and question the utility of therapeutic forms of interventions introduced by Western medicine. In a context of collective exposure to violence, individual healing methods based on one-to-one counselling generally have little effect.

Health as human security in the occupied Palestinian territory.

We describe the threats to survival, development, and wellbeing in the occupied Palestinian territory using human security as a framework. Palestinian security has deteriorated rapidly since 2000. More than 6000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military, with more than 1300 killed in the Gaza Strip during 22 days of aerial and ground attacks ending in January, 2009.

Normalising the abnormal: Palestinian youth and the contradictions of resilience in protracted conflict.

This qualitative study explores the construct of resilience by Palestinian youth in the 10th to 12th grades at school living in and around Ramallah in the West Bank. We look at how adolescents themselves interpret and give meaning to the concept of resilience in dehumanising and abnormal conditions. The aim is to 'problematise' the construct to go beyond quantitative research and objective inquiry.

Quality of life in the Palestinian context: an inquiry in war-like conditions.

This study aims to elucidate the concept of quality of life (QOL) in a unique environment characterized by protracted and ongoing conflict, beginning with the utilization of the WHOQOL-Bref as a starting point for discussion. It works to determine important health-related quality of life domains and items within each domain, and evaluate issues pertinent to the Palestinian population's understanding of life quality in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted with individuals living in the Gaza Strip and Ramallah District of the West Bank.