ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses problematic issues that arise when working with people who suffer from terror and trauma, and who belong to opposing political camps. When working with political opponents, it is at times hard or even impossible to identify with them. This kind of work often forces the therapist to face their own preconceived ideas, dogmatic thinking, closed mindedness, and wish not to get to know the patient. The major issue for discussion in the chapter is what can turn a terminal link, between a therapist and a patient who belong to opposing political camps, into a transformational one. The chapter presents a clinical vignette to depict a situation that developed between a politically left wing psychotherapist and a patient who is a settler from the West Bank, and therefore extremely right wing. The patient was being treated at NATAL, the Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War.
