War, climate change, and mental health: a geopsychiatric perspective on an emerging global polycrisis

Abstract Background War, armed conflict, forced displacement, and climate change are increasingly interconnected determinants of mental health. A geopsychiatric perspective situates their effects within the interacting geographic, geopolitical, environmental, cultural, economic, and institutional conditions that shape exposure, vulnerability, protection, and care. In conflict-affected and climate-vulnerable settings, mental health consequences extend beyond direct trauma and arise through cumulative disruptions to safety, livelihoods, social and cultural continuity, health systems, and adaptive capacity. Main body of the abstract This critical narrative and conceptual review uses geopsychiatry as its organizing framework to examine the mental health consequences of war and armed conflict within the climate–conflict polycrisis. Drawing on evidence from conflict psychiatry, displacement studies, climate and mental health research, and humanitarian mental health, it shows that war generates a broad and heterogeneous burden encompassing common and severe mental disorders, non-diagnostic forms of suffering, disability, and intergenerational effects. Risk is unequally distributed according to displacement status, social and clinical vulnerability, and access to protection and care. Climate change can act as a threat multiplier by intensifying resource insecurity, livelihood disruption, forced migration, institutional fragility, and pressure on health systems. The framework connects macro-level climate and geopolitical forces with meso-level systems and micro-level vulnerabilities and protective resources. It also emphasizes reciprocal, context-dependent pathways and the potential for adaptation, recovery, and collective resilience. Short conclusion Geopsychiatry provides an integrative basis for understanding the mental health effects of the climate–conflict polycrisis and for aligning clinical, humanitarian, and policy responses. Mental health should therefore be embedded in integrated policies for climate adaptation, conflict prevention, humanitarian response, and recovery.