Healing through humanity
“It’s a long process to understand this new reality and to adjust to it,” says Naama de la Fontaine.
“The word ‘healing’ is a word that we take from medicine,” said Naama de la Fontaine.
“It means to repair, or to return to full functioning. It means we will be back to what we were.”
De la Fontaine is a leading psychologist specialising in children’s trauma, at Israel’s Sheba Medical Centre. She and her professional staff have been among the first to receive hostages released from Gaza and assist them as they begin to process their trauma.
“Working with trauma survivors is a different kind of healing,” she said during a webinar for Australian Friends of Sheba Medical Centre and the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia.
“Healing is integration; it’s the ability to recognise what one has gone through – the losses, how that affects the way we see ourselves and see other humans and the world, and to face those terrible events. It’s within a context of who we were before, so it’s really a process of of meaning-making and integration, and that’s how we get to post-traumatic growth.
“We get to a point where we’re never the same, but life has forced us to develop a new perspective.”
When the first hostages were released in November 2023, among them many children, there was no clinical literature to advise de la Fontaine and her team on how to receive them.
“How does one prepare for something that is completely unprecedented?” she asked.
CEO of Australian Friends of Sheba Medical Centre Dan Goldberger added, “We never imagined Sheba would become the epicentre of treating patients no one in the world knows how to treat.”
De la Fontaine recognised that they were going to have to create the protocol by using their experience as trauma experts from previous disasters, as well as their knowledge of child development.
Another crucial part of their preparation was through the innovative use of Sheba’s simulation centre, where they practised with actors different scenarios of receiving returnees and supporting them during their first hours and days at the hospital.
“We were able to practise working together to hone our skills and provide a tailored response to the returnees in front of us,” said de la Fontaine.
“It helped us tremendously to put together this protocol and it helped us emotionally. I think there was not a dry eye among the teams when these actors depicted hostages released. It helped us on many levels to feel more prepared again, as much as it was possible.”
De la Fontaine said they prepared for a range of reactions, but some were unexpected.
“I think we didn’t hold in mind the euphoria and the joy that people would feel once their life was saved, and the hyper vigilance and alertness that comes with that euphoria,” she says.
“With the adrenaline, it was quite difficult to calm down and to sleep. There were children who often whispered when they were released, and it took them some time to start speaking out loud. And, of course, there were more complex emotions involved.”
The complexities were around delivering the difficult news that a loved one had been killed, or that their entire kibbutz had been destroyed. It was also challenging to prepare children for the return of a parent, while understanding what is happening from a child’s perspective.
“Children have their own way of interpreting reality and if we don’t step in and give explanations – based on their developmental capacity – then they fill in the gaps with their own ideas and their own fantasies,” said de la Fontaine.
“Children can have ideas about why their parent left them, or why they didn’t return earlier. Even meeting a parent whose return could be triggering and a reminder of a parent who has been killed and is gone.
“There’s a need to put words to this experience and normalise reactions, whether it’s happiness and excitement, or needing to take a step back and feeling completely overwhelmed.”
De la Fontaine said the returning parent, who might have been fantasising about what it would be like to reunite with their children, needs support when the reality sets in.
“It’s a long process to understand this new reality and to adjust to it,” she said.
“For children, trauma is always a breach to the attachment because we have a contract with our children that we will protect them no matter what. When trauma like October 7 happens, and despite their best efforts parents could not protect their children, then the trauma is a rupture to that relationship. The healing is the ability to recognise that it happened, to put words to it, to accept the emotions that come with it, including guilt, pain, anger and sadness, and to be able to build a more authentic and stronger bond between parents and children.
“So that’s a process of healing and I hope that we can help families and children experience that. I hope that we can experience that ourselves, as individuals, as communities and as a people.”
Being privileged enough to watch the precious reunions between families was both gratifying and healing, not just for those who were present, but for an entire nation.
“A violent attack like this one is an attack on our humanity, and so when our humanity is attacked, the only way to repair the feeling is by acts of humanity,” said de la Fonatine.
“The more acts of humanity, the more we can regain our belief and tend to that moral injury. The moment of reunion is a moment where you don’t need to be a psychologist, you don’t need to be a trauma expert, you don’t need to be a medical doctor to understand that it is medicine – it is the most important medicine.
“Just to be allowed to be in the presence of that was healing.”
“The moment of reunion…is the most important medicine.”
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