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The need for an ecosystemic understanding of mass trauma in global mental health has been consistently recorded across audiences ranging from humanitarian action groups and governmental agencies to public and mental health disciplines and professional organizations. The term trauma is used to connote a range of events and experiences that severely impact an individual or groups of individuals. In this special section the focus is on ‘‘mass trauma,’’which is conceptualized here as an event involving multiple people simultaneously experiencing, witnessing, or being confronted with actual and⁄ or threatened death, serious injury, and threat to self or others. The most common examples of mass trauma typically involve natural disasters, transportation disasters, technology-related disasters, war and organized violence, civil⁄ political⁄ community violence, terrorist acts, and hostage and shooting situations (Webb, 2004). Crises ranging from hurricanes and earthquakes to civil war, from famine to genocide, from the southeast Asian tsunami of 2004 to the wars in Afghanistan and later in Iraq following the terrorist attacks of 9⁄ 11 in New York City, along with a host of additional natural and human-made disasters worldwide, have forever changed the psychological, social, economic, and political landscape of the world we live in. These events have tested our capacity for responsive humanitarian action as well as the ability of mental health professionals to respond effectively to the overwhelming and increasingly complex needs of families directly impacted by these traumatic events. There is ample evidence of the growing requirements for mental …