One million Syrians in Lebanon: A portrait of daily stressors

The one millionth Syrian refugee in Lebanon was registered recently, and the United States’ National Public Radio commemorated the moment with a illuminating profile of life for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Reporting from Beirut, NPR’s Alice Fordham reports that Syrians are struggling with multiple daily stressors — those stress-inducing events and conditions of varying degrees of severity that result in large negative effects on mental health.

Notably, of this four-minute radio piece it is not until the second half that Ms Fordham refers to trauma as a problem. Of course, for many Syrian refugees trauma and the emotional consequences of trauma are without a doubt a problem — but they are not the only problem. For psychologists and other mental health professionals the (mostly academic) debate surrounding the roll of common stressful events and conditions is still an unsettled question. For displaced persons, there is no debate at all.

In the interest of disclosure, I come to this debate not exactly as a neutral party: Ken Miller and I proposed a model for integrating daily stressors into conflict and post-conflict research a few years ago. For an alternative viewpoint, see the debate that followed.