In Israel, where violence or terrorist attacks occur almost every day, schoolchildren are taught to grieve openly.
Faced with the realities of death so young, the kids are encouraged by their teachers to let their tears flow while they sit and talk among their classmates.
“The idea is to normalize their feelings,” said Ofra Ayalon, whose many books on the subject of trauma have been integrated into the Israeli educational system. “If they feel that it happens to everyone, it will minimize their need to seek expert help.”
Ayalon, a leading Israeli traumatologist and family therapist, has devoted her international practice to helping victims of traumatic events, such as domestic violence, child abuse, war and terrorist attacks, cope with their emotions.
She discussed her methods in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while visiting San Francisco last month as a guest of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation. But such strategies also may be useful here, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“Even one terrorist can really inflict enormous destruction,” said Ayalon, who currently serves as director of the Nord International Trauma Consultancy and as senior consultant for the Community Stress Prevention Center, both in Israel.
“After an attack, we try to work with those we see as the population at risk.”
In Israel, those at risk can include bystanders, army personnel and those who are injured, as well as those “who feel the ripples” of the attack, like children, teachers, doctors and those who participate in a chevra kadisha, or burial society.
In fact, the greatest success of the terrorist attacks in Israel, she said, “is not the number they hit, but the terror they inflict” nationwide.
“There are those who summoned up enough energy after the Holocaust or the War of Independence or the Yom Kippur War and were then hit by terrorist attacks this past year — there are children who come to school to find an empty seat in their row of chairs,” she said.
“Everybody has horrible stories. All can suffer tremendous trauma.”
The trauma extends to the Palestinian side, “where children are fed hatred towards Jews as part of their psychological diet,” said Ayalon, who calls the inculcation of hatred a form of abuse and trauma.
“They are given toy guns and told to shoot paper cutouts of people in Israel. They are told all Jews, not just Israelis, are dogs,” she said. As a result, “they are betrayed of their only hope of establishing a viable arrangement for peace, so they can live a normal life.”
Through her agencies, Ayalon has attempted to work with Palestinians, especially Palestinian children, because she feels it is the primary way to reduce conflict in the area.
“We know that trauma can breed more violence. If we are successful in reducing the effects of the trauma in the Palestinian population, we may eventually have a generation that’s less violent.”
But in terms of the Palestinians, Ayalon has never had the chance to see widespread results. For the most part, “they won’t accept us or our teachings,” she said. “There’s not this kind of interest on the other side.”
One way her agencies have managed to get their word across to the Palestinians, however, is by training psychologists from Finland in the methods for dealing with trauma. They have access to Palestinian refugee camps and are more widely accepted, she said.
“It’s very little, but we try. Unfortunately we don’t think it’s enough to make a tremendous difference.”
Ayalon really has no way of knowing how far her methods travel. But since her books have been translated into English, Arabic, Thai, Finnish, Croation and Spanish, she imagines they go far.
One such method she touts is “the belief channel” or the idea of “having a cause.”
“If you have a strong belief beyond your own personal needs, it’s a very great coping device,” she explained. As an example, she cited children in West Bank settlements, who are more under risk of attack but show fewer signs of trauma than those in pre-1967 Israel.
“Their parents will say, ‘This is the land of our ancestors and if we don’t stick to it we’ll lose everything.’ They believe what they’re doing is important. So they brave themselves against the danger.”