"One of my hopes with #ESTSS2025 is that we would leave as ambassadors for Georgia, and we've come together a family." Dominic offers thanks to all present "for making #ESTSS2025 come alive".

He pays special tribute to co-chairs Jana D Javakhishvili and Lela Tsiskarishvili

She shares three truths observed over #ESTSS2025:
- both trauma *and* resilience have so many faces
- silence protects nobody
- we have a shared responsibility to treat, witness and integrate
" please take these with you; we should be hopeful...unified...and good luck"

he thanks all delegates, organisers, speakers, volunteers, and sponsors for their presence. She pays tribute to the plurality of voices heard over the past 3 days especially "those who need our help and with whom we stand and share".

Further information on Prof Jana D Javakhishvili's profile and research can be found at:

faculty.iliauni.edu.ge/arts/darejan...

www.researchgate.net/profile/Dare...

orcid.org/0000-0003-01...

"We cannot ignore what is happening, we need to put our heads together... to work out how to study societal trauma. We need to do more!" she says. And perhaps our role extends beyond treatment, into witnessing, innovating and importantly globally collaborating.

She concedes that she does have more questions than answers:
is this limited to m.h. problems only?
should we be reactive or proactive?
can we contribute to prevention of unhealthy developments at the societal level?

"The measurement of outcomes shows this works," she says. Noting the lasting positive impact via standardised measures, "it's promising".
"It is possible to help those trapped in a conflict zone"

in brief, the platform provides a consistent chain of secure digital mental health interventions, including: self-screening, psychoeducation and self-help, transdiagnostic psychological counselling modular interventions, and advanced trauma-focused interventions

For more information on the work:
Javakhishvili, J., et al. (2023). Providing immediate digital mental health interventions and psychotrauma support during political crises. The Lancet Psychiatry, 10(9), 727–732. doi.org/10.1016/S221...

So how can care be provided during ongoing threat - intervening during war and prolonged conflicts?, she asks. She cites ongoing international collaborative work in Belarus: samopomo.ch samopomi.ch

Societal trauma operates not only at a higher level, but at the personal - with implications for individual health, functioning and also may includes questions and considerations around radicalisation and violence.

To do so requires acknowledgement, science, art and cultural rituals, justice, compensation, services, rehabilitation and recovery at a personal, state, governmental and societal level.

She goes on to draw from Georgia's own history: "since we became independent in 1991, we have never had the luxury of dealing with our past; no reflection".
Drawing on Klein and Herman, she explores that to process trauma requires mourning, & there is no closure without justice

Jana cites the Stumbling Stones or Stolpersteine project in Germany as a way of 'authentic mourning' and addressing societal dimensions of trauma experience and transmission:
www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/...