Mental Health Under Forced Migration: A Process-Oriented Framework Linking Structural Strain, Emotional Activation, and Resource Dynamics

Forced migration is an ongoing trajectory rather than a single event, with mental-health consequences shaped by changing legal, material, social and service conditions. Although established models connect post-migration stressors with psychological processes and multilevel support, greater temporal and operational precision is needed. This conceptual synthesis develops a hypothesis-generating, process-oriented framework integrating ecological and post-migration stress perspectives, resource theories, refugee evidence on coping and control, and multilevel support. It proposes a conditional sequence in which threat-related appraisal and emotional activation may be followed by goal-directed action, help-seeking, avoidance or withdrawal depending on perceived control, safety, response efficacy and feasible pathways. Where sustained effort occurs, its implications may depend on realised resource returns and recovery opportunities. Limited returns, additional loss or insufficient recovery are hypothesised to contribute to later fatigue or distress, but this temporal pathway remains untested. Translationally, the framework distinguishes referral initiation from completed contact and continuity and organises support as overlapping functions encompassing low-threshold stabilisation, community support, indicated treatment and crisis care, and service navigation. Four propositions formulate conditional and temporally ordered relationships for future empirical evaluation. The framework provides a basis for longitudinal and implementation research and repeated context-sensitive reassessment, not a validated clinical instrument or substitute for structural intervention.