July, 2009
The USAID-funded Creating Change Advocates program provides Israelis and Palestinians working in the areas of law, mental health, and civic planning training and opportunities for bi-national dialogue to address root causes of the conflict and build foundations for reconciliation. Under this program, Israeli and Palestinian mental health professionals attended a course at the School for Peace at Neve Shalom / Wahat al Salam in 2008-2009. Some of the training addressed the option of including, within the treatment framework, social and political content and dynamics connected with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – especially when the treatment relationship crosses national boundaries between Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs.
Most approaches to psychotherapy do not include this approach to the therapeutic framework, since it is traditionally viewed as interfering with the intra-psychic therapeutic process. The present story told by one of the participants of the training at the School for Peace illustrates the sort of intervention that graduates of the program have been initiating to improve their ability to treat their clients.
A Personal Story
"In the clinic where I am doing my residency, there are about 30 Arab clients (including Muslims, Christians and Druses). However, the clinic does not have a single Arab therapist. The senior staff members say that in the past, they tried to integrate an Arab therapist into the team, but were unsuccessful – mainly because the Arab clients requested a Jewish therapist.”
"I am working with four young Arab women clients now. Their particular needs are not addressed in the supervision I am receiving, nor are they addressed in the clinic staff meetings. During the recent Gaza war, a lot of material came up that involved the conflict, my Jewish identity, and the Arab identity of my clients. However, the staff did not address this during our meetings. I spoke to the clinic director about the need to address this in staff forums and a few other staff members made the same request. The director was responsive, which was encouraging.”
“At the next staff meeting, I spoke about my involvement in the issues concerning Israeli-Palestinian relations and my participation in the Change Advocates course at Neve Shalom. I told about two of my clients and discussed the theoretical basis of treatment for each. I mentioned the writings of psychologist Nissim Avissar,* who argues that the imperative to deal with political content is "the last taboo" of psychology.”
"I talked about a treatment session I did during the war, when the client arrived and said that she wanted to leave therapy, for various reasons. She did not relate directly to the war, but she showed up with a keffiyeh around her neck. My invitation to deal with her Arab identity and to the reality on the outside enabled her, in the end, to continue with the therapy and to allow a lot of significant content to come up. I cited an example from therapy with a young woman, who was dealing with questions of identity. In that case, I introduced for her the possibility of seeing in such questions, not only issues involving her personal history, but also issues involving her national affiliation."
N.’s colleagues reacted very positively to her presentation and asked many questions. They were inquiring about cross-national cases in therapy, asked for literature and consulted with her. Her colleagues were thankful because she had opened a new way of looking at emotional problems that were more socially connected, and that helped them treat their clients in a better manner.
N. continues to implement this new approach with her clients; she feels more confident to open issues that are connected to the social identity and the reality of minority people. The effectiveness of her therapy sessions with clients from the other nationality has been greatly improved.
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* For a thorough discussion by Avissar of these issues, see, e.g.: "PsychoActivism – past, present and future: Examining the Israeli-Palestinian case," by Nissim Avissar, M.A. in Clinical Psychology M.A. in Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies, Sheba Medical Center, Bar-Ilan University (undated). http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/0/4/6/2/pages204625/p204625-1.php. Dr. Avisar is a graduate of the 2006 change agents course. |
