5 - (OP15) Disseminating Cognitive Behavioral Therapies in Humanitarian Contexts: Training Clinicians and Community Health Workers in Myanmar Amid Political Violence and Earthquake Recovery

Ongoing political violence and recurrent natural disasters in Myanmar have resulted in widespread psychological distress, disrupted social systems, and severely limited access to mental health services. Recent evidence from humanitarian and disaster settings highlights the continued relevance of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)–based and transdiagnostic psychological interventions when adapted for low-resource contexts and delivered through scalable, implementation-informed models (Xue et al., 2024; Ndlovu et al., 2024). Emerging work further underscores the importance of embedding culturally responsive mental health interventions within broader disaster recovery and multisectoral humanitarian efforts to enhance reach, sustainability, and community trust (Deans & Carters, 2025).
This paper describes a community-engaged capacity-building initiative designed to train early-career clinicians and community health workers in culturally adapted CBT-based interventions across humanitarian settings in Myanmar and along the Thai–Myanmar border. The training model emphasizes core CBT principles—psychoeducation, behavioral activation, cognitive restructuring, exposure-based strategies, and problem-solving—delivered through a stepped-care and task-sharing framework consistent with global mental health and disaster response recommendations.
Training is conducted in collaboration with local community-based organizations to ensure contextual relevance, feasibility, and trust within affected communities. To enhance accessibility and comprehension, the program integrates partnerships with local artists and storytellers who develop visual illustrations, metaphors, and narrative tools to communicate CBT skills such as grounding, cognitive flexibility, and behavioral activation in culturally resonant ways. Dissemination efforts extend beyond clinical settings through collaboration with media platforms, including BBC Burmese, to share psychoeducational content and coping strategies related to trauma, grief, and disaster recovery following earthquakes and ongoing political violence. These efforts align with public mental health approaches that emphasize reach, stigma reduction, and collective resilience during protracted crises. Preliminary evaluation data from trainee self-report measures and qualitative feedback indicate improvements in CBT knowledge, clinical confidence, and perceived capacity to deliver evidence-based care under crisis conditions. Challenges related to safety, supervision continuity, and ethical care delivery in conflict-affected settings are discussed alongside lessons learned for sustainable dissemination. This work highlights how CBT-based interventions can be effectively adapted, taught, and disseminated through interdisciplinary and community-driven partnerships in humanitarian contexts. Implications for global CBT dissemination, disaster mental health, and culturally informed task-sharing models are discussed.