This inaugural volume of the Special Issue investigates the psychological, social, and communal impacts of residing in conditions of war and political violence. It consolidates multidisciplinary research conducted during ongoing armed conflicts, emphasizing collective trauma, various degrees of direct and indirect exposure, and community-based resources that influence coping mechanisms and adaptation. The contributions encompass a broad spectrum of populations, including bereaved families, hostage families, frontline healthcare personnel, civilians, adolescents, and individuals exposed to war-related media content. Collectively, the studies demonstrate how shared fear, loss, uncertainty, and disrupted trust permeate communities, while also identifying protective factors such as social support, coping mechanisms, psychological resources, and collective resilience. By emphasizing community trauma and real-time research during crises, this volume advances theoretical, clinical, and policy-oriented understandings of societal responses to prolonged war-related adversity.

For more than half a century, the people of Cyprus have reported missing family members to the authorities. Not knowing the fate of a loved one who disappeared during ethnic clashes led families into a state of ambiguous loss, a condition known to cause significant psychological stress. The main goal was to investigate role of identification and funeral process related experience in explaining variance in psychological distress, while controlling for psychosocial variables. Using a cross-sectional design, with total sample size of 898, the study involved two participant groups: Turkish Cypriots (TC) and Greek Cypriots (GC). Separate hierarchical regressions were conducted to examine predictors of psychological distress in both groups. When gender, resilience, perceived injustice, social support, relationship to the missing person (first-degree vs. second-degree), and coping scores were controlled for, experiences related to identification process negatively predicted psychological distress, whereas experiences related to funeral process positively predicted psychological distress in TC group. In contrast, when psychosocial variables were controlled for, experiences related to identification process positively predicted psychological distress, while experiences related to funeral process negatively predicted psychological distress in GC group. These divergent findings regarding identification and funeral processes suggest a potential influence of sociocultural and political factors. These findings highlighted the prolonged psychological distress experienced by both TC and GC family members of identified missing persons. It is considered essential to provide psychosocial support to the families even after the identification process, taking into account cultural, political, religious, and ethnic considerations and needs of each community.

Approximately 14% of individuals develop PTSD symptoms in response to trauma. Existing literature provides substantial evidence supporting Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in enhancing psychological flexibility and reducing PTSD symptoms. This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of ACT in managing PTSD symptoms. The PRISMA flowchart was used to guide the selection of relevant studies. A comprehensive meta-analysis was conducted to determine the effect size of ACT’s efficacy. A total of 25 studies were included in the systematic review, while 20 studies were included in meta-analysis. The quality of the selected studies was independently assessed by two reviewers using a quality rating scale (Yates et al., 2005). Meta-analytic findings indicated a mean effect size of 1.274 with a 95% confidence interval of 0.906 to 1.643, reflecting a large treatment effect. However, the narrative synthesis revealed that results across studies were not directly comparable due to heterogeneous study characteristics. This study highlights the strong potential of ACT as an effective intervention for PTSD, particularly in the context of natural and human-made disasters or traumatic incidents. Despite variability across studies, the overall evidence supports ACT’s use in trauma-informed care, warranting further investigation through high-quality, standardized trials.

Community trauma refers to the psychological and social impact collectively experienced by a group following prolonged adversity or traumatic events, such as natural disasters, violent acts, or major accidents. In Iran, recent instances of community trauma include the violent repression of protests during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and gas-poisoning attacks on girls’ schools in 2022. This study aimed to assess the prevalence, understand comorbidity patterns, and explore predictors of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), depression symptoms, and suicidal thoughts in a sample of Iranian adolescent girls (N = 395). It specifically focused on the impact of the recent community trauma in 2022, as well as other types of traumatic events (e.g., natural disasters, sexual abuse), on mental health outcomes. The prevalence of PTSD, GAD, depression symptoms, and suicidal thoughts was 75.4, 74.9, 71.9, and 45.6%, respectively. Community trauma was significantly associated with PTSD (b = 1.64), GAD (b = 0.82), depression (b = 1.66), and suicidal thoughts (b = 1.11). Other traumatic experiences predicted GAD (b = 3.05) and depression (b = 2.70), but not PTSD (b = 0.86) or suicidal thoughts (b = 1.61). Adolescents exposed to community trauma are at high risk for developing mental health disorders. These findings highlight the urgent need for trauma-informed school mental health programs and preventive policies that address both community-level adversity and individual traumatic experiences among adolescent school girls.

Empirical research suggests that the date of death by suicide may have had particular significance to the deceased, for example their birthday or an anniversary. However, no research has explored the views of the social network of the deceased as to any perceived significance of the date of the suicide. We conducted a secondary analysis of qualitative data from a large online UK survey of suicide-bereaved adults conducted in 2017–2018, including a question on whether suicide deaths of those in the respondent’s social network were thought to be related to a significant date. We presented descriptive statistics for participants’ socio-demographic characteristics and conducted a descriptive thematic analysis of free-text responses capturing views about any perceived links between suicides in the respondent’s social network and any dates of significance, to establish a classification of types of significant dates relating to a close contact’s suicide. Of the 7,158 eligible survey respondents, 203 (2.8%) individuals endorsed that the suicide of a friend/relative had occurred on a date of significance. We classified such dates as: 1) birthdays (39.5%), 2) death anniversaries (30.2.%), 3) other significant dates (23.9%), 4) coinciding dates (3.9%), and 5) ambiguous date categories (2.4%). Participants often identified interpersonal issues between the deceased and others as a potential explanation for a specific date having significance. Despite the potential for recall bias in participants seeking meaning to a traumatic loss, our results identify the need for suicide risk assessments to consider specific significant dates as temporal risk factors for distress and suicide risk.

This qualitative study examined the experiences of 19 art therapists working in safe space open studios (SSOS) in the immediate aftermath of the October 7th war in Israel. The SSOS were spontaneously created with the support of YAHAT- the Creative and Expressive Art Therapies Association in Israel as an emergency response to the traumatic reality. The aim of this study was to conceptualize and define the experiences and roles of these art therapists, and to identify and support their coping during an emergency of collective trauma. The findings revealed four themes: (1) The therapists’ reasons for volunteering, (2) The therapists’ experiences working in the studios, (3) The therapists’ emotional experiences, and (4) Processing the experience through art. The SSOS were found to provide a unique setting where the art therapists could navigate the shared trauma, and balance caregiving with emotional responses. The flexibility of the SSOS model was shown to encourage the therapists’ professional growth, resilience, and self-care, while also supporting community and individual coping. Art acted as a co-therapist, by facilitating emotional regulation and processing. The discussion highlights the transformative potential of art therapy in shared traumatic realities. This model could be adapted for shared learning and supervision programs to enhance the development and professional support of art therapists working with this model.

This systematic review aimed to synthesize phenomenological qualitative research regarding the lived experience of intergenerational trauma. Twenty-two studies were included in the review and were analyzed using thematic synthesis. Five analytical themes were identified: ‘the adaptive or maladaptive indelible scar of intergenerational trauma’; ‘between integration and fragmentation, and closeness and disconnection’; ‘the interaction of silence and communication’; ‘trying to survive and overcome’; and ‘attitudes toward therapeutic support’. Findings highlight the role of parental coping in the transmission and impact of intergenerational trauma; perceived to influence identification processes, family communication patterns, and the likelihood of accessing mental health support. Positive attitudes toward support were linked to interventions being informed by understanding the impact of intergenerational trauma and taking a systemic and relational approach. Implications for clinical practice are discussed. Future research is needed to further explore the multi-cultural and multi-perspective elements of intergenerational trauma.

A sharp increase in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms has been detected in Israel following the terror attacks of October 7th 2023. To examine the role of potential resilience factors, we investigated the moderating effects of social support and coping strategies in the relationship between trauma exposure and severity of PTSD and emotional distress symptoms. Approximately 20 days following the terror attack, 415 Israeli adults were assessed for PTSD symptoms, general distress, extent of social support and coping strategies. The results indicated a significant moderating effect for perceived social support (B = −1.02, SE = 0.47, p = .031), indicating a significantly stronger association between trauma exposure and PTSD symptoms for individuals with low support (B = 5.22, SE = 0.91, p < .001), compared to for individuals with high support (B = 2.49, SE = 0.87, p = .004). This effect was significant for social support from a significant other and friends (B = −1.24, SE = 0.49, p = .011 and B = −0.86, SE = 0.42, p = .042, respectively), but not from family. Coping orientation to problems had no moderating effect on these associations. These findings underscore the importance of social support as a protective factor in the aftermath of collective trauma and sets the stage to consider this factor as a pivotal element in resilience-oriented interventions.