SNHU Agents of Change Podcast · SNHU Social Sciences

Season 5 Ep 10: Beyond Borders, Healing Across the Frontlines

·34 min·2 clips

"Get clear on what you're there to do. Get in there, do it and get out."

Dr. Hector Garcia hosts the conversation. He welcomes Dr. David Algees, the Southern New Hampshire University Director of Counseling Programs, to talk about conflict zone counseling. The discussion stays centered on the human side of global conflict, resilience, and mental health. Algees explains that counseling in a war zone starts from very different assumptions than counseling in the United States, because safety cannot be taken for granted. A counselor may also have only one meeting with a client. That changes what can be diagnosed, what can be treated, and how much can realistically get done. The episode spends considerable time on anxiety. In a war zone, high anxiety can be a sensible response to immediate danger rather than a symptom to push away. Algees also describes the emotional pattern he has seen over years of conflict. Early on, stress, anxiety, depression, and dissociation are common. He defines dissociation as numbing out or mentally stepping away from what is happening. Three years into the conflict, exhaustion becomes much more visible. Faces show the strain of living with that level of uncertainty for so long. Some people stay focused on the belief that the conflict will eventually be resolved. Others narrow their attention to the next step because that is the only scale that feels manageable. The discussion keeps coming back to the limits imposed by time. With only one or two sessions, a counselor has to package something useful and leave the client with something that can be used immediately. Garcia keeps the tone respectful and explanatory, and Algees carries most of the substance with clear, accessible language. The result is a steady look at how mental health care changes when the usual conditions for care no longer exist. The closing thanks underline the value of the work being done in the war zone and the broader future of mental health care in conflict zones around the world.

As heard by us

A plainspoken look at counseling when war changes the rules.

The episode looks at conflict-zone counseling as work reshaped by war's basic conditions. Dr. David Algees shows how safety, diagnosis, and treatment shift when a counselor may have only one meeting with a client.

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If you want a calm, serious look at counseling in a war zone, start here.

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