Visiting Speaker - Avigail Abarbanel, Fully Human Psychotherapy

Israel confuses a lot of people.  Even seasoned activists are baffled by the emotional intensity that often characterises the reaction against critics of Israel.  Beyond Tribal Loyalties: Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists (Cambridge Scholars, 2012) is a collection of 25 personal stories of Jewish peace activists from five countries including Israel.  The stories shed light on the nature of Jewish and Zionist identity, and on the enormous challenge of leaving Zionist ideology.  The process of changing one's mind about Zionism is fraught and difficult.  From a psychological perspective, the implications of leaving are more akin to the process of leaving a cult than to simply changing one's mind about a set of ideas or an ideology.  The contribution of personal narratives to understanding this process is invaluable.  My analysis in this area draws among other things on theory from family therapy.  The theory I will discuss has special relevance to understanding the relationship between the individual and the group in general and I find it to be particularly helpful in the Zionist and Israeli context.

Avigail has been a psychotherapist in private practice since 1999.  Prior to her degree in psychotherapy, she completed an Honours degree in Politics.