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One hundred inpatients in a hospital-based Trauma Program in the USA were interviewed with the Dissociative Trance Disorder Interview Schedule (DTDIS). There were no significant differences for the DTDIS total score or any of the subscale scores on test-retest: all t-values comparing the two administrations of the DTDIS were below 0.7, and all p-values were above 0.5. Cronbach's alpha for the US sample was 0.966 and for the Israeli sample it was 0.971. The findings indicate that the DTDIS has good reliability and may be suitable for use in cross-cultural research; however, the results require replication by independent researchers in a variety of cultures and languages, and in both clinical and nonclinical samples.

This qualitative study describes the lived experience of maladaptive daydreaming (MD), an excessive form of unwanted daydreaming that produces a rewarding experience based on a created fantasy of a parallel reality associated with a profound sense of presence. A total of 21 in-depth interviews with persons who self-identified as struggling with MD were analyzed utilizing a phenomenological approach. Interviewees described how their natural capacity for vivid daydreaming had developed into a time-consuming habit that resulted in serious dysfunction. The phenomenology of MD was typified by complex fantasized mental scenarios that were often laced with emotionally compensatory themes involving competency, social recognition, and support. MD could be activated if several requirements were met. Because social interaction seems to be incompatible with this absorbing mental activity, solitude was necessary. In addition, kinesthetic activity and/or exposure to evocative music also appeared to be essential features. Besides delivering a firsthand description of key characteristics of MD, the study also indicates that MD is associated with dysfunctionality for which participants expressed a substantial need for help.

The purpose of this research was to promote an emic understanding of the dynamics that led a group of second-generation German ‘Aryans' to tie their fate to that of the people targeted and persecuted by their parents’ generation. We interviewed 15 non-Jewish German men and women who are permanent residents or citizens of Israel and who were born in 1929 or later to parents born in 1921 or earlier. Qualitative data analysis revealed that our interviewees depicted the intergenerational transmission of the parental experience of victimhood. Our respondents, colored by their love for their parents, accepted their parents’ narratives in which they depict themselves as bystanders or passive, subjugated accomplices of the Nazi regime. However, for most of our respondents, living with that inherited national identity had become a torturous burden. Many of our respondents had arrived in Israel with a humble and apprehensive interest in the survivors of their nation's crimes. Most of them seemed to believe that the...

This study investigated the way in which exposure to traumatic stress, posttraumatic reactions, and materialistic values impact coping and maladaptive consumption behaviors in a real-life traumatic situation. One hundred thirty-nine Israelis were sampled from a town under constant rocket fire (a high-stress environment), and 187 comparison respondents were sampled from a low-stress location. Our data show a main effect for materialism for all of the distress and maladaptive consumer behaviors under study, as well as for most coping behaviors with the exception of interpersonal expressive coping. In the high-stress group, interpersonal expressive coping, reflecting an inclination to utilize social support, was highest among mildly materialistic individuals. Highly materialistic persons were, presumably, more oriented to objects than humans, rendering a more support-seeking way of coping less relevant for them. Highly materialistic participants in the high-stress group reported the highest levels of posttra...

This study investigated the influence of the belief in reincarnation (BR) and in the power of fate (BPF) as potential coping resources in the shadow of loss and bereavement. Ninety bereaved parents, Jews and Druze (a sect that diverged from Islam in the 11th century), whose sons were killed in military action participated in this study. Druze respondents endorsed a belief in reincarnation more strongly than Jews. Druze were also far more fatalistic than their Jewish counterparts and expressed a stronger belief in the power of fate. More Jews than Druze expressed difficulties accepting their son's death and believing he was gone. Druze parents reported experiencing significantly less helplessness, guilt, and anger compared to Jewish controls. The value of enhanced cultural awareness during psychotherapy in a rapidly changing, multicultural world is discussed.

The effects of community cohesion were explored following a terrorist attack in Israel, during which an explosion on a public bus in a metropolitan city killed and wounded multiple individuals. Participants were 115 Israelis who resided in three specified perimeters around the area of impact. Data collected immediately following the attack and 1 month later included demographics, proximity and exposure to the terrorist event, community cohesion, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. For individuals reporting low and moderate degrees of exposure to the terror event, PTSD symptoms increased as community cohesion increased. However, for those with high exposure, PTSD symptoms and community cohesion were inversely related. Furthermore, for those who lived closest to the terror event, as community cohesion increased, PTSD symptoms decreased. However, for individuals who lived farther away from the terror event, community cohesion was positively associated with PTSD symptoms. One month fol...

This paper has three objectives: (1) to compare the abuse histories of American and Israeli college students, (2) to closely examine the different types of dissociative experiences among these students, and (3) to compare the dissociative experiences of American and Israeli college students. The US sample reported higher levels of abuse than the Israeli sample. The US and Israeli samples did not differ in overall level of dissociation but the US sample had higher rank-ordered scores for five kinds of dissociation: Flashbacks, Somatoform Dissociation, Persecutory Voices, Temporarily Dissociated Knowledge or Skills, and Being Told of Disremembered Behavior.

The present study was a result of an extraordinary opportunity to interview 23 women patients who had sexual relations with their therapists. The paper presents the phenomenological viewpoint of therapist-client sex (TCS) from the victims' perspectives. Patients were asked to describe their emotional experiences during the misguided therapy period. They depicted a sense of ambivalence towards TCS that included feelings of dependency, helplessness, and powerlessness, along with feelings of being chosen and achieving control over the therapist. The former victims' accounts revealed both short— and long-term emotional harm.

SUMMARY. This essay covers the field of dissociation in Israel as reflected in publications by Israeli contributors and their collaborators both in the Hebrew language and in the international literature. With 140 references, this article covers the 24-year history of the field in this Middle Eastern country presenting documentations on dissociation in indigenous Middle Eastern culture, dissociation and the trauma of the Holocaust, a discussion of the “memory wars” in Israel, a portrayal of Israeli training programs in the field, an account of writing and publicity on dissociative disorders, a report on the process of acceptance of the concept in Israel and the development of advocacy in the field, as well as information on controlled Israeli research and clinical publications on dissociation. This literature review seems to indicate that dissociation is a useful paradigm that has aided Israeli scholars in the understanding of disavowed experiences in a variety of contexts. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website

The 2001–2002 terror campaign against Israel's heartland was an unprecedented string of deadly bombing attacks against Israeli civilians. The violence touched the lives of countless Israelis and has negatively affected the general mood of many. The objective of this investigation was to assess the level of exposure to terrorism for individuals residing in the affected areas and to examine psychological responses and ways of coping during the peak of the violence. A random sample of 327 adults, purposely over-sampled from the hardest-hit areas, was surveyed. Although citizens residing in the most severely hit locales were also those who suffered most from posttraumatic symptoms, the effects of major national trauma were not limited to those directly exposed to it. These results suggest that objective measures of exposure or loss may not be sensitive predictors of reactive distress. Acceptance of the situation and its uncontrollability was both the most commonly used way of coping employed and the ...

ABSTRCT This article describes constructions of dybbuk, the Jewish variant of spirit possession, and its roots in sixteenth-century Kabbalist thought. Based on the analysis of documented early cases, this paper examines the possession idioms from psychological and socio-cultural perspectives by describing two case reports herein conceptualized as trance possession disorders. A comparison with the phenomenology of Dissociative Identity Disorder shows a striking resemblance between the syndromes. This culture-bound condition is discussed both in terms of its intra-psychic dynamics and its societal functions.

Following a terror attack, Israeli teachers are often re- quired to debrief their students and support them while having to cope personally with the community threat. This study aimed to advance the understanding of factors associated with improved coping under threat. "Controllability awareness," being attentive to what is and is not con- trollable in one's environment, is associated with tolerance for stresses of daily life. Here controllability awareness was assessed as a predictor of effective coping among schoolteachers in potentially traumatic stress situations in a community during acute stress (just after a Katyusha rocket attack) or chronic stress (ongoing threat of pending border hostili- ties). Correlations of scores on the Controllability Awareness Inventory

This study is an investigation of trauma and dissociation in 100 Israeli recovering patients with drug use disorder. The respondents showed more emotional, physical and sexual traumatization than an Israeli clinical sample, and their levels of dissociation were similar to those previously measured in Israeli patients diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder (Somer, Dolgin, & Saadon, 2001). Male respondents with higher trauma scores were more likely to report dissociative experiences during their drug use (chemical dissociation). Drug-free high-dissociators were more likely to report depersonalizing and derealizing experiences when they had been using drugs. Stronger dissociative experiences during drug-use related to more psychological distress during inter-use craving. A relationship between psychological distress during inter-use craving and psychological dissociation measured in a detoxified state was also established. Length of abstinence from illicit substances ...

This study is an investigation of trauma and dissociation in 93 Israeli patients recovering from drug use disorder. The respondents showed more emotional, physical and sexual traumatization than consecutive admissions to an Israeli outpatient stress clinic, and their levels of dissociation were similar to those previously measured in Israeli patients diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder. It was posited that the level of trauma-related dissociation can make an independent contribution to explaining variance in recovery from a drug use disorder. The finding of structural equation analyses supported this model and suggests that childhood traumatization is related to the proclivity of chemically-dependent respondents to participate in psychosocial treatment and that duration of psychosocial treatment can positively predict duration of abstinence. Dissociation levels made an independent negative contribution to the prediction of abstinence. While our findings imply that tenaci...

Ob jec tives : The pur pose of this re search was to ex plore the va lid ity of the con cept of dis so ci a tion as mea sured by a He brew version of the Dissociative Ex pe ri ences Scale (H-DES) i...

Clinical diagnoses of dissociative disorders (DDs), including Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), are controversial because there are mental health professionals in North America and elsewhere who are skeptical about whether these psychiatric disorders actually exist. This paper explores the attitudes of mental health professionals in Israel toward DDs and DID through a survey of 211 practicing clinicians (return rate of 39.5%). Of the sample, 95.5% scored at or above the point on a 5-point Likert scale measuring belief in the validity of DDs (m = 4.17, SD = 0.78); 84.5% declared at least a moderate belief in the validity of DID (M = 3.5, S.D. = 0.97). The average Israeli clinician surveyed had made 4.8 career-long DD diagnoses (S.D. = 18.06) and carried an average of 1.05 DD patients in his/her caseload (S.D. = 2.86). DID had a career-long diagnosis frequency of 0.14 patients per clinician (S.D. = 0.59) and was currently seen at a frequency of 0.03 cases per clinician (S.D. = 0.20). The five m...

Sixty-four adult survivors of childhood cancer, recruited via Israel's largest pediatric cancer treatment center, participated in a multi-dimensional assessment of long-term adjustment and quality of life in the domains of educational achievement, employment status, military service, family status, health, and psychological well-being. Subjects had been diagnosed with cancer prior to age 18, were three years or more off therapy with no evidence of disease, and over 18 years old at the time of the study. Data from structured interviews were compared to responses on similar items from a control group with no history of serious illness during childhood, matched for age, sex, and parental education levels. Results indicated an overall pattern of integration into the social mainstream, with similar objective levels of achievement for survivors and controls for most measures of education, employment, significant relationships, and psychological well-being. Results also indicated certain areas of disadvantage, such as military recruitment difficulties, lower income levels, and higher rates of workplace rejection. Significantly, almost half of the survivor sample reported subjective feelings that their illness experience had impaired their achievement in several domains. Quality of life is considered an important outcome parameter in terms of clinical decision making as well as in guiding preventive and supportive intervention efforts.