ABSTRACT
Out of a group of about 5,000 long-term psychiatric patients hospitalized in Israel since 1999, a disproportionate number of about 725 were identified as Holocaust survivors (Bazak Commission, 1999). A review of these cases showed that these patients had not been treated as a unique group, and that their trauma-related illnesses had been neglected in their decades-long treatment. Most of these patients had been diagnosed as having chronic schizophrenia, with no special attention given to the historical circumstances related to their psychiatric symptoms and disabilities. Many of the psychiatrists that treated them insist today that these patients do not respond to traditional treatment such as antipsychotic medication (Cahn, 1995; Riess, 2002). We postulated that many of them could have avoided lengthy if not lifelong psychiatric hospitalization had they been able or had an opportunity in their careers, or by society at large, to more openly share their severe history of persecution. Instead, those gruesome and traumatic experiences remained encapsulated and split off, causing the survivor to lead a double life. These patients may physically inhabit the world as geriatrics, though emotionally they may remain fixed in adolescence. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of video testimony as a potential useful clinical intervention many years after the acute traumatic event and to analyze the content of the video testimony for clinical material which may be useful in the psychotherapeutic process with the patient.
