“Present-absent”: professional identity and minority positioning among Arab women educational counsellors in Israel during wartime

Sociopolitical conflict can place minority-positioned counsellors under forms of professional strain not fully captured by conventional models of professional identity. This study examined how wartime conditions, minority positioning, gender, and collectivist belonging shaped the professional identity of Arab women educational counsellors in Israel during the Gaza war. Using a qualitative interview design with phenomenological sensitivity, semi-structured interviews were conducted in Arabic with 23 Arab women educational counsellors in northern Israel, including 13 Muslim, 2 Bedouin Muslim, 4 Christian, and 4 Druze counsellors. Interviews were transcribed, translated, and analysed thematically. Three interrelated themes were generated. First, participants described a destabilising split between professional mission and personal life, marked by emotional overload, role conflict, and psychological and physical exhaustion. Second, professional identity was strained by silence, self-monitoring, and fractured belonging, with pressures differing across subgroups. Third, counsellors drew on unevenly distributed family, communal, spiritual, and professional resources to sustain practice and preserve meaning. Findings suggest that professional identity in conflict settings is shaped by occupational demands, minority positioning, gendered expectations, and collectivist obligations. An integrative model is proposed, showing how professional identity is strained and reworked under such conditions, with implications for culturally responsive training, supervision, and institutional support in counselling psychology.