New York, November 12, 2026. Dr Adam Brown, Clinical Psychologist and Director of Center for Global Mental Health, co-teaches class with Professor Sarah Knuckey
Human rights activists are often exposed to stress and potentially traumatic material, but education in building skills in mental health, resilience, and sustainable careers is too often lacking. To support student education and their long-term goals as advocates for justice, the Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic includes explicit teaching on wellbeing.
Students deepen their skills by tackling the issue from multiple perspectives. They examine contemporary literature on the issue, learn from human rights defenders and experts in psychology, explore their own prior experiences, share concerns and resilience strategies with peers, and participate in simulations in class to practice skills. Over a number of years, students also co-wrote with Clinic professors a Clinic-wide resilience policy to support structural initiatives.
On November 5, 2026, leading mental health expert Dr Adam Brown joined the Human Rights Clinic to discuss the science of trauma, resilience, and wellbeing. As a Professor of Clinical Psychology at The New School for Social Research, Adam directs the New School Center for Global Mental Health.
Dr Brown has also been an advisor to the Human Rights Clinic for many years, and published a series of papers on human rights and mental health with Professor Sarah Knuckey, the director of the Human Rights Clinic, and other colleagues. Papers have included Trauma, Depression, and Burnout in the Human Rights Field: Identifying Barriers to Resilient Advocacy, From a “Culture of Unwellness” to Sustainable Advocacy: Organizational Responses to Mental Health Risks in the Human Rights Field, and The Proportionality Rule and Mental Health Harm in War.
In his visit this month to the Clinic, Dr Brown presented on his latest research on stress and trauma and risk factors for adverse mental health impacts. Importantly, he also presented on the science behind a variety of mitigation, coping, and resilience strategies.
During the class, students discussed individual and occupational stressors, such as overwork, discrimination, inadequate resources, precarious working conditions, and the sheer scale of rights violations around the world. To deepen leadership skills, students conducted an in-class simulation exercise, taking on the role of the director of an NGO facing mental health concerns among staff.
Together, students and supervisors explored mechanisms for promoting cultural changes within organizations and across the human rights field in order to reduce the stigma of mental health challenges and promote sustainable, lifelong activism.
For more information about human rights and wellbeing, and the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute’s work in this area, visit: https://hri.law.columbia.edu/our-work/transformation-and-empowerment/human-rights-resilience-project
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The Human Rights Institute advances international human rights through education, advocacy, fact-finding, research, scholarship, and critical reflection. We work in partnership with advocates, communities, and organizations pushing for social change to develop and strengthen the human rights legal framework and mechanisms, promote justice and accountability for human rights violations, and build and amplify collective power.