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Tamar Galai-Gat, M.A.
Director
Metiv - Walk-In Crisis Center
The Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma
21 Hadishon St., Jerusalem
Israel
972-2 6799566
For many years, Israeli society dealt with trauma in ways characteristic of societies fighting for survival: by denying
the effects of trauma, and emphasizing a show of strength and resilience.
Mental health agencies in Israel have developed a routine approach following a bombing or other mass traumatic
event involving large numbers of people. Special teams are available in hospital emergency rooms during the first
six hours. Municipal welfare personnel are available for a period of 24 hours. Following this, the Israeli National
Insurance Institute (NII) provides trauma services only for those who meet their criteria for direct victims of a
terrorist attack. Until Metiv, the first walk-in crisis center in Israel, opened, non-stigmatic, immediate aid was simply
not available for those many victims who do not meet the NII criteria.
Metiv offers immediate short-term crisis intervention, free of charge, to those seeking help. People come to Metiv
for reasons ranging from witnessing a terrorist attack to failed romantic relationships, marital crises, sexual abuse,
acute financial difficulties and job loss, and more. In the first ten months of its existence, over 500 people have
received help, and hundreds of phone calls have been received.
In this same period Jerusalem has experienced six suicide bombings (5 of them in buses, and one in a café). 110 of
those affected by the bombings have received help in Metiv. They have included survivors of the attack,
eyewitnesses, residents of the neighborhood and family members. Some of them were seen hours after the event,
others came in days, or even weeks later. In this presentation I will discuss the challenge of early interventions with
survivors of terrorist attacks in a community-based crisis center. The fact that the staff are themselves part of the
same community, living under the same threat, adds to this challenge. The model we use in such interventions,
which emphasizes psycho-education, anxiety regulation and "normalization" of symptoms will be presented, and
illustrated by case examples.
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