More than a year after the October 7 massacre, perhaps one thing that hasn’t changed is the difficulty in fathoming the toll that dark day and the ensuing war have taken on Israelis’ mental wellbeing.
One institution that has been grappling with this issue – nearly from day one – is the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo. Immediately recognising the unprecedented nature of what Israel was facing, the college set up a program “Healing the Soul”, aimed at upskilling mental health professionals who were now dealing with issues previously unimaginable.
To get an insight into this program, I spoke to the college’s Yariv Sultan. In our conversation, which was edited for length and clarity, we discussed how Healing the Soul began, the challenges it faced, and what Sultan sees as the path to take going forward.
At what point following October 7 did you realise the extent of the mental health crisis facing Israel?
I think all of us felt something in the first week, but we couldn’t really put our finger on it, because it was too early in the game. Therapists very quickly said, “We are not equipped to deal with whatever the situation is.”
And what were the first steps you took in response to this realisation?
About two weeks after October 7, we started online meetings for therapists. Every night, on Zoom meetings, we had about 1000 professionals participating in these open discussions. That was a signal that it’s not unique for therapists to say, “We are at loss here. We need a forum where we can discuss what’s going on, where we can share experiences from the ground with colleagues and see what we need in our toolkit that we don’t have right now.” This was a need that came pretty quickly from the bottom up, and we responded in a couple of days.
What did you do in these meetings?
Every session was dedicated to one topic that we thought would be useful for therapists. Remember, we didn’t know the magnitude of the tragedy in the first days, so it was a fishing expedition.
One of the big differences was the possible collapse of communities. kibbutzim were massacred – it’s a community. A neighbourhood in Ofakim that is suffering loss en masse because terrorists came to a specific area in the city where you know your neighbours, your teachers, your kindergarten assistant where your kid goes every day.
So it had a different meaning to just a theoretical workshop. From that first response, “Healing the Soul” emerged. A month after October 7, we decided to do something more formally on top of those evening sessions, and to offer therapists more structured workshops – which were great.
You mentioned the potential for communities breaking down as a new, major issue that arose. What other issues did you have to deal with?
Families of hostages. You don’t know if they’re alive, so specific tools are needed to deal with those families. The uncertainty of the situation is perhaps more agonising than once you know that your loved ones are not with you anymore.
Another group [we helped] was therapists who are now dealing with people who are not used to going to therapy. Other topics that were developed as the needs arose were training caregivers for treating acute trauma, and first response for those affected by extreme events. For instance, how do you deal with a girl who saw with her own eyes unimaginable things at the Nova party? It’s a different kind of trauma, so they had to develop some kind of methodology to deal with the survivors.
How do you explain to a child that three of his kindergarten mates are not coming back? It’s a different tool that the therapist needs.
How did Healing the Soul come into being?
The chairman of the board of trustees moved a motion in November [2023] that we are going to finance it by philanthropy. We said this is our service to Israeli society. We are an academic institution with a social calling, so all the workshops and advice we gave free of charge to everyone participating. Our Mifrasim Institute in our School of Behavioural Sciences posted on social media that we are opening classes about it – the flood came in of interested parties to join us.
We started with classes of 20 people, for 20 academic hours. Some were video calls – because this enabled us to reach the periphery of the country – some were physical, and some were a hybrid model. It developed very quickly. After about a month, people started talking about us. Some professional organisations asked us to run a specific workshop for them, including one of the leading mental health NGOs in Israel. We were approached by the Israeli Arab community, who have different approaches [to mental health]. In a Bedouin community, we ran special classes for Arab therapists. Don’t forget, they are also suffering. They are part of the Israeli community, but you have to give them the specific tools they need in order for them to treat their community.
We are working with families of the hostages, and we developed specific classes for them. We are working with volunteers in Hamal Ezrahi, which provides civil assistance to the population.
There were a myriad of potential clients that asked for this support, and we were happy to give it.
Tell me a bit more about Healing the Soul
Let’s say you have a topic: how to deal with deep trauma. You have 20 people registered for this cohort. They would meet on specific days with a professional who we designate to this group. Usually it’s an academic from the college, or some professionals we’re working with. For 20 academic hours, they are providing the therapists with the up-to-date tools in the market. And there’s a lot of internal discussions between the cohort – it gives them new insights into the latest developments. We share with them everything we know from October 7 until now, so it’s an ongoing process.
We never had something on this scale. We work in Ofakim, where we tried this kind of approach with the kindergartens, working with the families. This worked a little better, this worked a little less. They’re trying to share the accumulated know-how with the therapists.
Do you know how many people you’ve trained?
Over 1300. The target was 1000.
We talk a lot about Israelis suffering mental health issues post-October 7, but what about mental health professionals in Israel? If I treated survivors from the Nova massacre for months on end, I imagine it would take quite a toll on me.
It’s a great question. Some of them [mental health professionals] jumped headfirst into this right after October 7, and they were overwhelmed. They didn’t really know how deep and muddy this all is. It’s not the usual pre-October 7 treatment. I’m sure it takes a toll on everyone.
Is there anything else you want to say to Diaspora Jewry?
Public health in Israel is a sector that was totally under-budgeted and underestimated for many years. I think this has changed. Everyone understands now not only the importance of mental health, but also that it’s going to be part of our lives for years to come. It’s not over yet. Think about people who physically are okay, but are affected mentally on so many levels that we don’t understand yet.
A paper was recently published that estimated that in the next few years we will need to invest 50 billion shekels in mental health in Israel. One of the things we decided to do was to expand the scope of the Mifrasim Institute and develop another department that will not focus on mental health professionals, but on the public sector.
Why do public sector people who don’t deal with mental health issues need training? Think, for instance, that you are the insurance officer of a community, and you have to go around and describe the damage done by Hezbollah rockets in the north. You have to understand that when you’re visiting Metula or Kibbutz Be’eri in the south, you are dealing with people who lost everything. It’s not a force of nature that you are analysing: how much water from the rain went into your house and damaged the painting on the wall. You are working with families who lost family members, who are evacuees from the north for 12 months – they have a different mental health status than the pre-October 7 person.
So what we are trying to offer is a tool kit for those public sector professionals who will engage with those families suffering from loss during this ongoing terror attack that we are living through. The public sector is open to it, and needs it. We put it as one of our highest priorities at the college: how to establish, how to finance this new department at Mifrasim, because mental health now goes beyond the professional realm. It’s going to be a hot button issue for Israelis for many years.
Josh Feldman is a Melbourne-raised writer who made aliyah in January. @joshrfeldman
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