“And Then October 7th Happened … ”Narratives of Jewish Therapists Navigating a Post 10/7 World

This study sought to explore the experience of cultural responsibility, in reaction to the October 7th terrorist attack in Israel and the subsequent global response, of a sub-sample of mental health providers who identify as Jewish. The data were gathered as part of a larger survey on cultural responsibility of mental health practitioners (MHP) with marginalized identities. From this effort, the data for 24 Jewish mental health practitioners (JMHP) were extracted and examined in the light of the events of 10/7. The mean age of the overall sample was 44.54 (sd 12.2), 83.3% identified as female, and 58.3% as straight. In terms of race/ethnicity, 25% identified solely as White, 70.8% as Jewish with descriptors (e.g. Ashkenazi, Middle Eastern), and 4.2 as Multiracial. The majority of the sample were Master’s level clinicians (70.9%) and had 11 or more years of experience (70.9%). Exploratory analyses were conducted on qualitative responses to an open-ended question from eight JMHP who provided data post-10/7. Narrative findings included 5 themes: Complicated Nature of Jewish Identity, Parallels to the Past, Sense of Cultural Responsibility, Anxiety and Isolation, with each containing 2 subthemes. The exploratory quantitative data comparing pre-10/7 (n = 6) and post-10/7 (n = 18) participants indicated that JMHP post-10/7 may be experiencing a higher sense of fulfillment from connection to their cultural group and worries about the perception of their community. These findings support the work of previous studies on concepts such as traumatic invalidation, increased stress and burnout, and Compounded Traumatic Reality for Jewish mental health professionals following the events of October 7, 2023.