Nothing "Post" About Continuous Trauma

The choke-hold on Gaza moved into its tenth year in 2016. The suffering born of a decade of human rights violations, poverty and three full-scale military assaults creates a psychological toll on the population which is inestimable. Homelessness, multiple deaths within families, severe injuries, and the ever present threat of renewed Israeli bombardment create a psychological climate of ongoing continuous, collective trauma. 

Post traumatic stress disorder, as a clinical term, barely touches the enormity of the disabling psychological distress that permeates the reality of daily life here. There is nothing "post" about a continual, unrelenting, multifaceted catastrophe.  There is also no "disorder" in the sense that there is an intrapsychic disease requiring individualized treatment. The abnormality is the unabated war crimes that inflict suffering on the imprisoned, helpless civilian population. The rest of the world, moreover is turning it's back on this political violence and is thus enabling the trauma-inducing occupation and blockade to continue.

Mental health professionals in Gaza are strained beyond capacity. Of the nearly two million residents of the 360 km2 area Gaza Strip, there isn't a single person here who has not experienced multiple traumas. Continuous grief, nightmares, disabling anxiety and hopelessness colour everyone's daily life. The therapists charged with healing these injuries are themselves victims of living in this traumatogenic environment. Their burden is thus two-fold: the trauma they share with their clients is compounded by repeat exposure to their clients' own clinical material. 

As a clinical psychologist from Vancouver, I joined the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility delegation in Gaza to address  the vicarious, secondary trauma that mental health professionals struggle with. In one workshop of ten therapists, four had their homes demolished and three spoke of having family members killed in last summer's massacre. Overlay on top of this traumatic loss, the painful events their clients unfold all day, and the magnitude of the  psychologists' burden is clarified.

The aim of our training seminar was to introduce burnout prevention skills and the relevant literature on trauma and psychological resilience.  Cognitive behaviour therapy, behavioural self-care, self hypnosis, journal-writing and  peer supervision for ongoing social support were among the therapeutic skills reviewed.  In an attempt to keep the material culturally relevant and subjectively meaningful, a relaxation script was created in Arabic language for each participant using personally generated healing imagery. The visualization was then recorded by each therapist onto their mobile phones to be available as their tailor-made "portable" stress management strategy.  Moreover, as the  political and the clinical are interwoven, we expanded the idea of "to exist is to resist" to include "resistance is resilience". Resisting oppression was conceptualized as adaptive coping in that it is a psychologically healthy way to counter hopelessness and promote resilience in face of adversity - both for the psychologist and for the client. The inverse is also true. Practicing self-care promotes resilience which is an act of resistance. ("I will maintain my psychological health in spite your efforts to annihilate my self and culture".)

It didn't take long for a trusting environment to be established and for people to share details of their own experiences of trauma. We worked with this material as a way to model the therapeutic value of peer support, to learn new clinical skills, and to help cognitively integrate and in turn release some of the accumulated emotional pain that comes with living and working here.  We plan to continue working together via Skype.

I learned much from my Palestinian mental health colleagues and am grateful for having met this extraordinary group. May the time come soon when the source of this trauma is ended and we can begin to truly speak of healing post traumatic injuries.

Click for my published article incorporating a Canadian context

Collecting scrap plastic to buy bread

Caged pathway into Gaza

From the Mountain to the Sea

The Great Transition.

The City of Vancouver from December 31, 2015 to January 1, 2016.

A friar in the forest. Happy, hung-over, costumed 'polar bears'. Children in wonderment. Dreams soar.

From the Mountain to the Sea.

Peace. Justice. Love and Light.

For all of us.

Running in Trance

Sometimes  - oh so rarely - the elements of a run flow together so perfectly, that we momentarily step outside ourselves and are blessed with a glimpse into an elusive, unitive state of consciousness.














Liminal Space
                                                                                                                                 

Canada Goose. In Still Water.

Rambling Towards the Light

Cliffs of Moher - Ireland

Pathway to the Sacred as depicted in Stone Age Malta

Pathway to the Sacred as depicted in Stone Age Ireland

Peek into the Numinous - Ireland

Iconography throughout Ages - Valletta, Malta

One Year After the 'Ceasefire' and the War on Gaza is Not Over

                         
                              
War is Over. If You Want It.

It was a bright, cold January day in Toronto. The year was 1969. I was a high school student gazing upwards in wonderment, as the small airplane was skywriting John and Yoko’s message of hope and empowerment.  The Vietnam War was raging and world resolve to end it was gathering.  It was another six years before that war was to be over.

More recently, between July 7 and August 26, 2014, Israeli forces killed 2,205 Palestinians in Gaza. According to UN figures at least 1,483 of those fatalities were civilians. 521 were children. The Israeli Government had the temerity to call this one-sided massacre Operation Protective Edge. 71 Israelis were also killed in the fighting; 66 were soldiers. In other words, 70% of Palestinian deaths were civilians and 8% of Israeli deaths were civilians. All human life is sacred, but to claim victimhood and shared culpability (“Israel is exercising its right to defend herself”) amidst such disproportionate carnage is turning reality on its head. 18,000 homes were destroyed in those fifty-one days last summer, leaving over 100,000 Palestinians homeless. One year after the ceasefire, the rubble remains and those 100,000 people are still internally displaced. Nearly 80% of the population requires food aid. Electricity and potable water are in short supply. (One Israeli home was destroyed during the same period.) Entire families, places of worship, journalists and their news gathering organizations, hospitals and clinics, UN facilities, schools, civilian infrastructure – were all targeted and destroyed. Beyond the devastating loss of life and enormous structural damage is the on-going psychological trauma that negatively impacts all aspects of daily life. Over 300,000 children require psychosocial assistance to help them cope with the loss of family members, physical disabilities sustained, symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and the ever-present fear of subsequent bombardments. Children six years and older living in Gaza have experienced three wars in their short lives. Long-term consequences of such barbarity are inestimable. Indeed the phrase “post traumatic stress” is misleading in this context of interminable suffering. There is nothing “post” about the continuous trauma of living life amidst on-going military occupation and siege.

A ceasefire was agreed upon on August 26, 2014. Benjamin Netanyahu disturbingly boasted of Israel’s “great military and political achievement.”  The apocalyptic air, sea and land assault on a captive, largely civilian population is a war crime. Reframing it as a great achievement is unconscionable. Terms of the ceasefire included an easing of the seven-year crippling blockade of Gaza. Israeli forces continue, however to shoot at Gazan fishers, target farmers working their fields – and not one single home has since been rebuilt!  This is an on-going human rights and public health catastrophe. Not a ceasefire.

According to a recent World Bank report, Gaza is “on the verge of collapse”. Less then 28% of international reconstruction pledges have been disbursed and at 43% – Gaza has the world’s highest rate of unemployment. With more then half the population under the age of 18, a youth unemployment rate greater then 60% is especially troubling. This unfathomable devastation is the result not of an earthquake or hurricane, but of a carefully planned, long-term strategy that over the years has shamefully been given unconditional support by the Harper government. Since 2007, an economic and military blockade has restricted the movement of goods in and out of Gaza resulting in the catastrophic de-development of society, and a concomitant deep deterioration of the quality of life of the 1.8 million inhabitants who are locked-in and isolated within the 360 square kilometre tiny Gaza Strip. Recurring ferocious military attacks within this hapless context puts all humanity to shame.

On the first anniversary of the supposed ceasefire – where the oppressor continues to be recast as victim, and occupation forces continue to traumatize the besieged people of Gaza – it is time for Canadians to insist that this country uphold its obligations under international law and demand an end to war crimes in Palestine. It is totally unacceptable for the Canadian Government to maintain its uncritical backing of such institutionalized, violent oppression.

It won’t be long before candidates for the Federal Election start soliciting our support. Ask them what their position is on Palestine. Do they endorse a just peace that celebrates the universality of human rights and which reflects international law?  What is their position on illegal settlements in the West Bank? What about the on-going illegal blockade of Gaza? Do they acknowledge Palestinian refugees the right to return? Canada’s policies and behaviours in the Middle East can either foster peace or ensure continuing injustice, trauma and chaos. Let’s vote wisely.

End the Occupation. Lift the Siege.
Then as now – War is Over. If You Want It. 

Peak Experience. Peek Experience.

Walking amidst the splendour of Kyrgyzstan's Tien Shan (Celestial) Mountains, it isn't difficult to appreciate how cultures around the world, and throughout the ages, have continued to revere mountainous landscapes as portals to the Divine.

Travels Along the Silk Road - Uzbekistan