Integrating a shared patient-psychotherapist crisis into one's professional identity: Israeli psychotherapists look back at the Gulf War

Abstract

One year after the Gulf war, psychotherapists' recollections of their professional functioning and personal reactions during the war were investigated in an attempt to understand better how these events had been integrated into their professional identity. The war had been an extremely stressful time that had brought a real threat of mass destruction. Memories were investigated along three independent variables: time, proximity to directly affected areas, and professional experience. Results indicate that psychotherapists remember themselves as having been more available to their work and having been less affected than what they reported during the war. The difficulty for psychotherapists in integrating their limitations into their professional identity is discussed.