Humanitarian worker psychological health is impacted by proximity to violence. This impacts the nature of humanitarian assistance in changing political and security environments. Humanitarian workers' abilities to make sense of their work, the stress paradigms of mental health, and critiques of humanitarianism are examined. The author challenges humanitarians and organisations not to interpret the human experiences of violence through a stress paradigm, in particular that of trauma and PTSD. An argument is made for recognition of humanitarian workers as active agents. The work is informed by...