An occupied state of mind: Clinical transference and countertransference across the Israeli/Palestinian divide

Silencing Palestine: Limitations on free speech within mental health organizations

“…The contradiction between universal humanism and political Zionism we observe in mental health organizations is a reflection in miniature of the same tension evident more broadly, particularly within the Israeli Left and among American Jews who support Israel while identifying themselves as politically liberal. Here lies the dilemma of the Jewish liberal, an issue that we have addressed elsewhere (Jabr & Berger, ). This is the internally inconsistent posture captured by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé in his oft‐quoted phrase, “shoot and cry” (), identifying the Israeli impulse to deal ruthlessly with opposition to Zionism and simultaneously to bewail the sad results of this ruthlessness.…”

“…In a previous publication (Jabr & Berger, ), we examined a series of events that we had observed between individual Jewish Israeli mental health clinicians and Palestinian colleagues or patients in several contexts: within clinical supervision, scholarly conferences, and other professional settings. We made note of many instances of the expression of prejudice, hostility, and suspicion on the part of Jewish Israeli mental health clinicians—attitudes that tended to silence Palestinian colleagues and patients or to limit the content of the ideas they were permitted to express in return.…”

Community mental health, psychoanalysis, and freedom: The case of Palestine

“…Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) predominates as a modality of treatment and there is little formal psychoanalytic training available to Palestinian clinicians, unless they enroll in training programs in Israel; the authors have described elsewhere our experiences in an Israeli program (Jabr & Berger, 2016a). In general, however, clinicians in Palestine are familiar with many of the fundamental ideas of psychoanalysis such as the notions of trauma, identity, unconscious motivation, and defenses such as denial and projection—although these concepts are rarely presented through a systematic training program as elements of a coherent intellectual system linked to specific clinical processes.…”

Collusion as a Defense against Guilt: Further Notes on the West's Relationship with Israel and the Palestinians

“…Societies are not formed by large numbers of homogenous individuals, but are organized hierarchically and functionally, with gradations of power, agency and political consciousness. It may not be clear if elites are giving voice to deep insecurities that originate in a shared trauma, or if they are harnessing the anxieties and fears of their political constituents (see Jabr & Berger, ). Zuckerman has written of the “the empirically demonstrable ideological manifestations in the [Holocaust] discourse”, and talks of “a massive co‐optation and instrumentalization of the memory of the victims …” (Zuckerman, , p. 63).…”

“…Nancy Hollander has provided an effective exposition and critique of this ‘trauma paradigm’, pointing out that without contextualisation it can encourage an avoidance of accountability, and come to mirror a political refusal to confront the ‘systemic inequities endemic to the Israeli/Palestinian relationship’ (see Hollander, ).…”