Iraq's doctors and specialists, subjected to persecution under Saddam Hussein, now the target of insurgent bullets and bombs, are struggling to assess the scale of the problem, they said.
Dr Sabah Sadik, a Britain-based doctor who advises Iraq's Health Ministry, said he was shocked at the dilapidation of the hospital system when he returned after the ouster of Saddam for the first time since the 1970s.
Scores of doctors fled the country under Saddam, and now more are leaving despite recruitment efforts, he said.
"It is very difficult when doctors and intellectuals have been targeted by the terrorists," Sadik said at a news conference in Washington.
"It is a big dilemma because a lot of colleagues would like to leave the country."
As the Saddam Hussein government deliberately neglected to keep statistics, health experts in Iraq are still trying to get to form an accurate picture of the country's mental health, Sadik said.
But a wide variety of ailments can be expected in a nation stifled by decades of tyranny, foreign occupation and three years of post-Saddam violence.
"It is a very easy for a lot of people to lose hope with ongoing violence and ongoing intimidation. Iraqi citizens were also devalued and targeted by the Iraqi regime," said Dr Husam Alathari, medical director of the INOVA Center for Addiction Treatment Services and a consultant to the Iraqi Ministry of Health.
US soldiers returning home from tours in Iraq, meanwhile are initially showing a higher incidence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) than in other American conflicts.
Around 317,000 veterans who received a primary or secondary diagnosis of PTSD were treated at medical centers run by the US Department of Veterans Affairs in 2005.
Around a third have had a subsequent diagnosis of a mental health disorder, said Dr Antonette Zeiss, the department's Deputy Chief Consultant for Mental Health.
"It is higher than initial rates in previous wars," said Zeiss, adding that part of the rise may be due to a vigorous effort by the department to find out what help veterans' need.
There are more women veterans from the Iraq war -- around 13 percent -- than in other conflicts, reflecting the need for more research into PTSD.
Veterans are also typically older, with many from reserve and National Guard units, rather than the young, conscript soldiers in their teens and early 20s who fought the Vietnam War.
Many veterans, who would have died from their wounds in earlier conflicts, survived through speedy access to medical treatment -- but are coming home maimed in body and mind, prompting new mental disorders, Zeiss said.
"They have amputations, significant brain injury, they have lived through something profound," she said.
"We have a lot to learn about how rehab will be possible ... can we get these people back into the community, into relationships?"
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