Mental Distress and Care In Turbulent Times

Mental distress and mental health care are shaped by conditions of social, political, environmental, and economic instability. This session invites papers that examine how turbulent contexts—including extreme events, political crises, humanitarian emergencies, economic insecurity, migration, displacement and diaspora—reconfigure experiences of distress, reshape care practices, and challenge established models of mental health knowledge and intervention.

We welcome contributions, including but not limited to those that explore how distress is understood and managed during times of change; how care systems adapt, transform, or break down; and how inequalities related to race, class, gender, citizenship, and geopolitics shape mental health outcomes and access to support.

The session welcomes a wide range of methodologies, including qualitative, participatory, co-produced, and creative approaches that foreground lived experience.