PTSD and the Politics of Trauma in Israel: A Nation on the Couch

198 Pages·2017·4.798 MB·English

by  Keren Friedman-Peleg

PTSD AND THE POLITICS OF TRAUMA IN ISRAEL
A Nation on the Couch

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, has long been understood as a
mental trauma that affects the individual. However, what role do fami-
lies, health experts, and the national community at large play in inter-
preting and responding to this individualized trauma?
In PTSD and the Politics of Trauma in Israel, Keren Friedman-Peleg
sheds light on a new way of speaking about mental vulnerability and
national belonging in contemporary Israel. Based on ethnographic field-
work conducted at the Israel Center for Victims of Terror and War and
the Israel Trauma Coalition between 2004 and 2009, Friedman-Peleg’s
rich ethnographic study challenges the traditional and limited defini-
tions of trauma. In doing so, she exposes how these clinical definitions
have been transformed into new categories of identity, thereby raising
new dynamics of power, as well as new forms of dialogue.
keren friedman-peleg is a senior lecturer at the School of Behav-
ioral Sciences and the Head of the President’s Program for Excellence at
the College of Management – Academic Studies in Israel.
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PTSD and the Politics
of Trauma in Israel
A Nation on the Couch
KEREN FRIEDMAN-PELEG
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2017
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
Printed in the U.S.A.
First edition published by The Hebrew University Magnes Press,
Jerusalem, 2014: גלפ-ןמדירפ ןרק ,לארשיב המוארטה לש הקיטילופה :הפסה לע םעה
ISBN 978-1-4426-5051-0 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4426-2931-8 (paper)
Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with
vegetable-based inks.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Friedman-Peleg, Keren, 1975–
[ha-ˋAm ˋal ha-sapah. English]
PTSD and the politics of trauma in Israel : a nation on the couch / Keren
Friedman-Peleg.
First edition published by The Hebrew University Magnes Press, Jerusalem,
2014 under title: ha-ˋAm ˋal ha-sapah : ha-poliˌtiˌkah shel ha-ˌtraˋumah
be-Yi´sraˋel.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4426-5051-0 (cloth). – ISBN 978-1-4426-2931-8 (paper)
1. Post-traumatic stress disorder – Israel. 2. Soldiers – Israel – Psychological
aspects. 3. Traumatic shock – Israel – Case studies. I. Title. II. Title:
ha-ˋAm ˋal ha-sapah. English
RC552.P67F7613 2017 616.85'21 C2016-905114-5
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts
Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
Funded by the Financé par le
Government gouvernement
of Canada du Canada
To my mother, Ahuva
(who taught me the power of words in Hebrew),
To my father, Eitan
(who taught me the power of words in English),
And for both of them:
For prayers they have made, and for great loves –
To daily life, to work, to Israel, to the kibbutz,
to one another, and for us
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction
Beyond the Secret Confines of the Clinic: An Ethnographic
Journey Tracing the Politics of Trauma in Israel 3
1 Birth of Agencies, Birth of an Interpretative Framework 23
2 Trauma and Capital: Bearers of Knowledge, Keepers of
Cashboxes 44
3 Trauma and the Camera: Labelling Stress, Marketing the Fear 60
4 They Shoot, Cry, and Are Treated: The “Clinical Nucleus”
of Trauma among IDF Soldiers 78
5 Man, Woman, and Disorder: Trauma in the Intimate Sphere
of the Family 102
6 Wandering PTSD: Ethnic Diversity and At-Risk Groups across
the Country 117
7 Taking Hold: Resilience Program in the Southern Town
of Sderot 138
8 A Nation on the Couch: Treading Cautiously around Sensitive
Clinical and Political Domains 158
References 171
Index 179
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Acknowledgments
Many days and long nights have come together to make the publishing
of this book not only a possible mission but also a fruitful journey, full
of moments of joy and even a few, crucial epiphanies.
First, I would like to thank the supervisors of my PhD dissertation:
Professors Yoram Bilu and Moshe Shokeid. To Yoram I owe a deep thank-
you for the hand he agreed to hold at just the right moment when it
seemed that anthropology and psychology were refusing to be inves-
tigated together, and for helping me to see the enormous potential of
blending individual matters with collective concerns. Yoram’s supervi-
sion was a very constructive journey we took together behind the secret
confines of the clinic, when theoretical lenses and empirical findings
were mixed with raising children – my daughters and his grandchil-
dren. Moshe is the first and my most important teacher of anthropol-
ogy. During the hot summer of 1996, a few months after the political
murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he opened the door for me
and showed me a world where interacting with other human beings
and facing their fears, wishes, dreams, and loves (while facing your
own fears, wishes, dreams, and loves) was the most important aspect
of a good ethnography.
While being closely engaged with the mental vulnerability of indi-
viduals, families, and communities inside Israel, there have been an-
thropologists from abroad who have become outstanding teachers for
me. Allan Young is the first. Reading his seminal work, The Harmony of
Illusion: Inventing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (published by Princeton
University Press in 1995), and then meeting with Allan himself were
among the most meaningful and stimulating experiences I had during
my ethnographic research about security-related PTSD in Israel. Allan’s