Israeli psychotherapists and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Abstract

This paper discusses the positions taken by Israeli analysts and therapists vis-àvis the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Israeli-Arab relations, in the context of their attitude to political and social issues. The history of this topic is traced for the past few decades and attention is paid to the influence of the conflict on actual analytic and therapeutic processes, to the dilemmas posed by analysts’ open expression of political views, and to efforts to reach psychoanalytic insight into the dynamics of the conflict. The author believes that political issues unavoidably influence individuals’ lives, cannot be avoided in analytic discourse, and their working through can ultimately deepen and enrich clinical work.