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deal with anxiety, fear, neglect, exposure to violence and cruelties, and displacement. For young people sheer survival takes precedence over any other need such as education, recreation, or employment. For today’s Sri Lankan youth, the brutal armed conflict began when they were infants or very young children (Samarasinghe 1998)—this is a generation born into and brought up in time of war. Humans learn to negotiate with and navigate their external environment mainly through their relationship with their mother, so the emotional and physical situation of the mother plays a crucial role in the well-being of young people. In a conflict situation, as Samarasinghe (1998) observes, the mother is put in a position where she faces the external world with insecurity, lack of confidence, and fear, emotions that young children internalize and could later employ in their dealings with society and that can lead to anxiety, distrust, grief, uncertainty about the future, and feelings of persecution and distress. Young people, particularly women, are also facing other forms of social dislocation, such as migration to the Middle East, which break the normal roles and routines of families (Samarasinghe 1998). The families and the youngsters left behind have to deal not only with the loss of the primary caregiver but also sometimes with the social stigma attached to migrant families. This phenomenon is not confined to the conflict-affected areas— migrant workers come from all parts of the country, so hundreds of thousands of families everywhere are affected. Furthermore, a large body of research into experiences of combat soldiers and militants shows that they face serious psychological and physical consequences stemming from trauma. Victims exposed to violence show severe and durable symptoms, which can last for years after exposure to the disaster (Samarasinghe 1998). This is very concerning, given that thousands of Sri Lankan men, women, children, and young people have been exposed to violence and social dislocation over the last several decades. The limited research into the numerous psychological issues generated by conflict reveal that young people find it difficult to deal with relationships, examination pressures, the pressures of poverty, unemployment, intergenerational conflict, and other psychological problems (Hettige 2005b). These issues have figured prominently in many cases of self-harm in Sri Lanka over the last several decades. In the east of Sri Lanka, as in many parts of the conflict zones, the youth generally come from the rural poor and a highly marginalized section of society, and they have been excluded from the mainstream. Siddhartan (2008) describes how discrimination and institutional barriers