When the Clinic's Wall Collapses: Israeli Therapists Share Insights From Treating October 7 Survivors

HAARETZ

From the article:

"Orna Reuven, a psychologist who wrote "Farewell Embrace," talks about how in the first days after October 7, therapists rushed down to hotels on the Dead Sea and in the southern resort city of Eilat, where displaced Israelis were staying. In her story, she describes an encounter with a woman whose daughter was murdered that Saturday along with the daughter's husband and son. "When everything is so broken and stormy, all the things we rely on in our work – meetings at regular times and in a regular place – aren't relevant," Reuven says. "And we didn't even miss them. They were a kind of luxury." She adds: "It's a connection between two souls trying to work together on the pain in the life of one of them. But the other one isn't really standing aloof. This is a space where everything is stripped of all ceremony and everything that normally protects us. We can offer listening and a presence."

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The Time of Tears

LA TRIBUNE DIMANCHE

A year after October 7, the French writer Sylvain Prudhomme visits Israel, and sketches a portrait of a wounded and divided country, at a turning point in its history.

From the article:

"Orna Reuven recounts that she has never seen so many cases of depression and anxiety among her patients: “I don’t believe a single person in this country has been truly happy for a year.” Using Melanie Klein’s terminology, she suggests that Israeli society is engrossed in a schizo-paranoid position, characterized by the inability to see the other in anything but radical terms of black and white, good and evil".

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