Between the lines: Naming mental suffering in armed conflict in the ICRC Library

Mental suffering is everywhere in the ICRC Library's collections.A library cannot collect testimonies, reports and scholarship on humanitarian law and action in armed conflict for 160 years without it piling up on the shelves and bleeding through the pages.Yet, as a subject, mental health has remained relatively diffuse and implicit.In our catalogue, the dedicated keyword was only adopted in 2021 to replace the under-used "mental illness", too narrow and clinical a term.There are related pre-existing keywords, such as "psychiatry", "psychological tension" and "psychological support"."Health" is a much-used descriptor, though it has unsurprisingly largely functioned as a shorthand for "physical health".While mental suffering is omnipresent in the collection, it appears only rarely in catalogue