"Psychosocial support is an approach to victims of violence or natural disasters to foster resilience of both communities and individuals. It aims at easing resumption of normalcy and to prevent pathological consequences of potentially traumatic situations".

The term ‘psychosocial’ refers to the close relationship between the individual and the collective aspects of any social entity. They mutually influence each other. The ‘psychological’ effects are caused by a range of experiences that affect the emotions, behaviour, thoughts, memory and learning capacity of an individual. To a large extent, the psychological effects depend on the way in which these events are perceived and given meaning by the individual.

Social effects are the shared experiences of disruptive events that affect the relations between people – not only as a result of the events but also of death, separation and sense of loss. It also includes an economic and political dimension, since many people suffer multiple consequences of, for example, disasters or armed conflicts.