What is it about?
The study looks at how living for many years under Israeli military occupation affects Palestinians’ mental health and everyday lives. We spoke with Palestinian mental health professionals to better understand these experiences from within the Palestinian context. One of the main messages of the study is that mental health cannot always be understood by looking only at the individual. For Palestinians, psychological well-being is closely connected to the social, political, and historical realities in which people live. The research also highlights important Palestinian ways of coping, supporting one another, and finding strength. These experiences and sources of strength are often missing from mainstream approaches to mental health, which are frequently developed in very different cultural and social contexts. Our findings therefore call for a psychology that is rooted in Palestinian realities, culture, history, and community. A psychology that recognizes that mental health is not separate from people’s lived conditions, and that dignity, justice, solidarity, and collective strength are also essential to psychological well-being. Ultimately, the study asks us to think differently about mental health: not only as something that happens inside an individual, but also as something deeply shaped by the world in which people live. Authors: Sabrina Russo, Niveen Haliqawi, Sabine Abusaada, Kiley Marouf, and Guido Veronese
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Why is it important?
This research is important because mental health does not exist in isolation from the reality people live in. For Palestinians, experiences of occupation, insecurity, restrictions, displacement, and ongoing political violence are part of everyday life. Yet mental health is often discussed as if these realities are separate from people’s psychological well-being. This study brings Palestinian voices to the center of the conversation. It shows that understanding mental health requires listening to people’s lived experiences, culture, history, and communities—not simply applying models developed somewhere else. It also highlights something that is often overlooked: Palestinians are not only experiencing suffering; they are also drawing on powerful forms of solidarity, community support, and steadfastness.
Perspectives
This publication is the result of a long journey—personally, professionally, and academically—and of many difficult conversations about what mental health means when people are living under occupation and prolonged injustice. For me, this research is also about questioning the way we have been taught to understand mental health. Too often, psychological suffering is taken out of its context and placed entirely inside the individual. But how can we understand a person's mental health without understanding the reality they are living in? I am particularly proud that this work contributes, even in a small way, to the conversation around a Palestinian psychology, a psychology that is culturally grounded, connected to people's lived realities, and committed to dignity and justice. I am also deeply grateful to my co-authors and, above all, to the Palestinian mental health professionals who trusted us with their experiences and knowledge. Without their voices, this research would not exist. For me, the message remains simple: we cannot speak about lasting psychological well-being without speaking about dignity, justice, and freedom.
sabrina russo
Arab American University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Mental health under occupation: A phenomenological study of Palestinian lived experiences., Peace and Conflict Journal of Peace Psychology, August 2026, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/pac0000860.
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