War, Climate Change, and Mental Health: A Geopsychiatric Perspective on an Emerging Global Polycrisis

This paper examines the interconnected effects of war, climate change, forced displacement, and humanitarian fragility on mental health through a geopsychiatric perspective. It conceptualises these interacting pressures as a climate-conflict polycrisis in which environmental hazards, resource insecurity, violence, displacement, economic instability, and weakened institutions can reinforce one another and generate cumulative mental health consequences, including psychological distress, grief, moral injury, depression, anxiety, severe mental disorders, disability, and intergenerational effects. The authors propose a multilevel framework connecting global and geopolitical drivers with community and institutional systems and individual vulnerabilities, while emphasising that climate change acts as a threat multiplier rather than a direct cause of conflict. The paper concludes that mental health should be integrated into climate adaptation, conflict prevention, humanitarian response, refugee protection, and post-conflict reconstruction, alongside efforts to strengthen resilience, continuity of care, and human rights.