Objective: This study explores the experience of Israeli therapists who both worked with clients in emergency interventions during the third week following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and were themselves exposed, to one extent or another, to the terrifying events.Method: Open‐ended questionnaires were completed by 201 therapists during the third week following October 7. Using thematic analysis, therapists' reports of the themes their clients raised in therapeutic sessions were compared with their reports of the hardships they themselves experienced as individuals and professionals during the same period. Drawing on the concept of shared traumatic reality, the study considers how close the themes are, and how challenging it is to cope concurrently with a traumatic reality that is experienced both directly and indirectly.Results: Seven main categories emerged from the responses to questions about both their clients and themselves: (1) uncertainty and worries about the near and more distant future; (2) overwhelming emotions; (3) physical sensations; (4) shattered meaning and loss of trust; (5) lack of routine; (6) self‐preservation; and (7) shared trauma.Conclusions: The findings shed light on early reactions to a shared traumatic reality in the period closely following the trauma itself, indicating that professionals find it hard to differentiate between the personal, professional, and national levels when exposed to a large‐scale traumatic event they share with their clients.

To delve into the phenomenon of memorial tattoos in Israel following the October 7, 2023, massacre, and the ensuing Iron Swords War utilizing Terror Management Theory. A qualitative approach employing digital ethnography and visual content analysis was adopted to scrutinize 250 war tattoo images sourced from Israeli tattoo artists' Instagram pages and Facebook groups. Data collection spanned the initial four months of the war, from October 2023 to January 2024. The analysis highlights existential anxieties stemming from the massacre and ongoing conflict, which are both reflected and addressed through the tattoos' content and meaning. Memorial tattoos serve as responses to mortality salience, depicting themes that adhere to the three anxiety-buffer mechanisms proposed by the theory: reinforcement of collective worldviews; enhancement of self-esteem; and seeking continued attachment relationships. Through these mechanisms, tattoo recipients invest efforts in giving meaning to the inconceivable events and their ongoing grief.

COVID-19 has impacted all levels of daily life for people everywhere, with particularly serious implications for pregnant women. This paper examines the COVID-19-related childbirth anxiety (CCA) of Israeli women in the first two waves of the pandemic. We first present two psychotherapeutic case studies with pregnant women in the two waves. This is followed by an empirical study that compared the contribution of background variables, psychological distress, economic concerns, and personal resources to CCA in two samples, Wave 1, March–April 2020 (n = 403) and Wave 2, September–October 2020 (n = 1401), and two subpopulations, Jewish and Arab women. Findings reveal that CCA was significantly lower in Wave 2 than in Wave 1. Furthermore, poorer health, higher education, being an Arab, later gestational week, at-risk pregnancy, wave, higher psychological distress, greater economic concerns, and lower self-compassion contributed to higher childbirth anxiety. Wave moderated the association between optimism and anxiety. The findings of the empirical study, together with insights from the case studies, provide evidence of a decrease in CCA later in the crisis, and indicate the significance of resources for coping with the psychological implications of the pandemic. Moreover, they suggest the importance of empowering self-reliance techniques, such as self-compassion, which was significantly associated with lower anxiety, above and beyond the background and psychological variables. Clinical Impact Statement: Using both psychotherapeutic cases and empirical findings, this study points to the risk and resilience factors that contributed to pregnant women’s COVID-19-related childbirth anxiety (CCA) in the first two waves of the pandemic. The study suggests that CCA was higher in the first wave, as well as among women from a minority group. At the same time, the research shows that resilience resources of optimism and self-compassion contributed to the reduction of anxiety. These findings may guide interventions for the vulnerable group of pregnant women in times of crisis.

The study qualitatively analyzed parents' and grandparents' reactions to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing war, utilizing a priori a deductive approach with Terror Management Theory (TMT) for the analysis. Israeli parents (19) and grandparents (17) were interviewed up to one month following the event. The findings are presented through two themes. The first indicates that the events raised a dramatic mortality salience, whereas the second, consisting of three sub-themes, shows how this real-life mortality salience led to both the breakdown of TMT regulating mechanisms and their reestablishment through enhancing self-esteem, validating cultural worldviews and actively seeking to be close to significant others. Whereas most previous studies concentrated on traumatic responses in such events, this study offers a solid validated theory dealing with death awareness as an explanation to such responses, thus helping to further elaborate both the conceptualization and application of TMT.

In this article I describe one dimension of the reverie phenomenon, which I term the “musical reverie,” whereby the therapist experiences a kind of daydreaming that includes songs with both lyrics and tunes. In early development, the reverie function permits a transformation of the baby's unprocessed and unmetabolized materials within the mother's psyche, so that once they are returned to the infant, it will be possible to contain them in a manner that neither overwhelms nor fragments the child. Likewise, this may operate in psychoanalytic treatment. This article suggests that the auditory dimension, where lyrics and tunes exist successfully, captures both the symbolic and the presymbolic, and bridges the two. I further suggest that the music serves the analyst in early, hopeless, and fragmented moments as a companion to reignite the psychic movement that has halted in both the patient's and the analyst's mind. The therapist's ability to process beta elements—the unmetabolized (unprocessed affective experience)—into alpha elements (thoughts that can be thought by the thinker) will enable the renewed movement and rehabilitation of the mind, even in barren, dead areas.