Prof. Aner Guvrin and Dr. Sharon Ziv-Beiman talk with Dr. Gabi Mann about her new book

Dr. Gabi Mann's new book, now published in English by Routledge, offers a deep and complex look at psychoanalysis in Israel in an era of collective trauma.

Her book, "Practising Psychoanalysis in Israel: Seeing Through Blindness," offers a unique perspective on Israeli psychoanalysis in an era of collective trauma. The book combines insights from the psychoanalysis of Kohut, Bion, and Winnicott with Buddhist practices, offering a theoretical and clinical framework for moving from a state of post-traumatic helplessness to a cohesiveness of the self and a broader spiritual perspective.

Through rich clinical examples, the book demonstrates how to work when the therapeutic setting is threatened by overwhelming events in external reality. What is special about this book is the combination of the unique Israeli perspective with Western psychoanalytic theories and Eastern spiritual concepts. Dr. Mann offers a way to deal with situations of trauma and helplessness, while addressing the complex Israeli reality.

The first episode, "Captive in a Disaster: October 2023," deals with the trauma of October 7, demonstrating how psychoanalytic theory can help understand and deal with traumatic events on a national level, and offers clinical tools for dealing with their consequences in the treatment room.

In the conversation we will discuss the following topics:

• Contradictory self-states that characterize many Israeli citizens at this time, and are expressed in a variety of different transferences within the therapeutic situation.

• A discussion of a case that demonstrates this type of split both within the patient's psyche and with the therapist. The discussion will describe various transference and countertransference situations in this situation, in which both therapists and patients experienced narcissistic injuries - producing - splits in the mind.

• The enormous impact of the return of the abductees; the joy, excitement, and hurtful hope, as well as re-traumatization and rage in the shadow of the unholy horror that is once again surfacing.

The evening will include a case presentation and demonstrations of therapeutic interventions unique to the fractured situation of the contemporary Israeli.

Dr. Gabi Mann - Clinical psychologist, instructor and psychoanalyst, co-founder of the Tel Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and former chair of the institute. Gabi Mann instructs and teaches in the continuing education track of the Psychology of the Self and Therapeutic Practice, at Tel Aviv University, and was the head of the track. She is also a member of the teaching staff of Ruach Adam, a Buddhist psychoanalytic training program in Lod.

Mann has written various articles on the topic of Israeli trauma and the possible transformations in these traumatic situations. In 2020, she edited a booklet for Psychoanalytic Inquiry - titled Beyond the Consulting Room - Psychoanalysis Within the Social Sphere in Israel, in which analysts from various streams were invited to write about their work in the field of social engagement. Her book Through Blindness, on the expansion of consciousness in psychoanalysis, will be published in 2022 by Resling Publishing. Her new book Practicing Psychoanalysis in Israel: Seeing Through Blindness is currently being published by Routledge.