Il mourning and the sI feel guilty are psychological states which the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, also studied in depth and about whom he wrote a lot. They essentially express themselves in the individual dimension and are often closely connected to each other to form a lasting trauma. Can become, in special circumstances, collective phenomena that share the feelings of thousands of people or of an entire community or even of a nation? Certainly, and in this case we can certainly speak of a collective or national trauma. A community can return to normal life after experiencing such trauma? And how much time does it take?
This is what the Tel Aviv writer and psychologist is wondering after the events of October 7 in Israel Ayelet Gundar-Goshen. We follow her reasoning which is very interesting and above all happens live, given that the psychologist follows clinical cases. Her story also helps her to decipher, outside of schematisms and geographical and emotional distance, what is happening in tormented Palestine.
To Eliat
Eliot is a tourist city in southern Israel. Over 30.000 citizens evacuated from the areas bordering the Gaza Strip after the events of 7 October were transferred here.
The city of Eliat warmly welcomed these refugees and shops were quick to offer discounts, promotions and special events were organised. But the mood of the people is terrible. A little nothing is enough for it to emerge in all its negativity.
For example, when some balloons that adorned the Eliat shopping center burst, as happens to all balloons, a stampede occurred: customers started screaming and fleeing madly, they started running towards the exits and some people fell to the ground pushed by the crowd. A lady fainted.
It is exactly that that provokes this unusual reaction to a simple and usual fact collective trauma prolonged period that followed the October 7 massacre. A phenomenon that is unfolding throughout the country without us yet being able to understand what its consequences could be on the life of the entire nation and without even knowing how to get out of it.
It's always "Black Saturday"
More than 1400 people were killed in the Hamas surprise attack, an event known in Israel as “Black Saturday”. Tens of thousands of people were stranded in their homes for many hours under a hail of rockets.
Even those not directly targeted by the terrorist action found themselves directly witnessing the atrocities that Hamas, moreover, broadcast live. Israelis desperate for news of their relatives or friends have in fact connected to Hamas media channels and found images that will haunt them forever.
I mental health support centers they are struggling to deal with the situation. Symptoms vary: hypervigilance and extreme anxiety, fear of leaving the house, nightmares, depression. When Ayelet Gundar-Goshen went to Eilat to help survivors, with a delegation from the Shalvata psychiatric hospital, she detected another symptom that presented itself again and again: guilt.
Survivor's guilt
People torture themselves over the fact that it was their children who were taken hostage and taken to Gaza and not them who are now safe. How is it possible that their spouse was killed, while they survived? How could they not protect their family, their friends, their community? Some can't stop thinking about what they could have done differently than they did and hate themselves for surviving.
In a family, now in deep mourning, it happened that a father hid in a safe room with his children. The terrorists set fire to the house. Then he took the little girl and jumped out the window, but he left the little boy behind. There are no words to describe the horror and guilt of this father destroyed by what he did and what was probably the only option he had.
La guilt wears down the survivors e it prevents many from seeking help: some feel they deserve the suffering they suffer, a sort of punishment for remaining alive. Others think they have no right to receive help when so many people find themselves in such a dramatic situation.
La survivor's guilt it is not limited to the people who experienced the massacre. It is a contagious disease, no less than Covid-19.
A nation unable to return to normal life
A woman fled after a rocket hit her building. For three weeks she hasn't left the house where she now lives. At night she looks out the window with terror. When she was asked how she managed to relax, she talked about how much she liked music, especially Taylor Swift. But when she was suggested to take a walk and listen to some music, she reacted angrily. “There are 239 kidnapped Israelis and you're telling me to listen to Taylor Swift quietly on a lawn?”
As far as this patient and many others are concerned, resuming a normal life is a desecration, an abandonment of the hostages and a disfigurement of the dead. Even people who haven't been through hell are locking themselves in one psychological cell.
They allow themselves bread and water and nothing else, in a deep and painful identification with those whose world has been destroyed. With the whole country bleeding, how can it be possible to sip a coffee, go to work or walk in the park?
Get back in motion
Being happy, laughing, making love, all this seems impossible now. For civil society to resume its course, we must seize every spark of life that can still manifest itself. When you refuse to live and lock yourself in a capsule, you give the enemy what he wanted: to bring a reign of terror and pain into your life.
Even the choice to listen to Taylor Swift can be considered a vital act, a sign of the choice to live. To continue to support survivors, we must, first of all, get people back on their feet, making them stand on their own two feet.
Il Collective trauma takes a mental toll, but even a cheap one. Communities far from the front lines have completely suspended their way of life: many are keeping their children home from school. The shops are empty, the cafes are deserted, trade and traffic have practically ceased. Clothing stores and restaurants have put their employees on leave without pay.
Bring the hostages home
Huge billboards along highways usually advertise products or services. Now they show smiling faces: three-year-old Yahel Shoham, kidnapped by Hamas; Five-year-old Raz Asher and three-year-old Aviv Asher, kidnapped; Nine-year-old Tal Goldstein, kidnapped.
These faces are tattooed on the hearts of Israelis. Too many civilian lives have been lost, first in Israel and now in Gaza. The trauma is so deep, on both sides of the border.
It's incredibly hard to imagine that a cure would ever be possible, but bringing the hostages home is the Israelis' first step towards healing.
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°°°°°Taken from Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, Israelis grapple with the collective trauma of October 7, “The Financial Times”, 10 November 2023
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Ayelet Gundar-Goshen she graduated in Clinical Psychology from Tel Aviv University. You write for one of the main Israeli newspapers and are an activist in the civil rights movement in your country. She is also the author of plays that have received critical acclaim and various awards, including the Berlin Today Award and the New York City Short Film Festival Award. Her novel One Night Only, Markovitch won the Sapir Prize in Israel for the best work before her. It was translated into Italian by Giuntina and Feltrinelli. Other novels by her are also available in Italian: Where the Wolf Hides, Neri Pozza; Waking the Lions, Giuntina which will also become a TV series produced at the BBC and finally Liar, Giuntina.
