The Louis and Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work
The Family that Heals Together
By leveraging research into treatments that empower families to help members manage trauma, Bar-Ilan is creating ripples of resilience—and a culture of agency.
A Whole-Systems Approach
If your partner came home from fighting a war and suffered combat memories, what would you do to help him cope? If there’s a surprising takeaway from trauma expert Prof. Rachel Dekel’s research, it’s this: Don’t necessarily trust your instincts.
“We know from our research that often our instincts are wrong,” explains Dekel, the founder of the clinical-research center Ripples for Recovery in the Louis and Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work. Considered one of Israel’s leading experts on the effects of trauma on families, Dekel is co-author, together with Prof. Danny Horesh of the Department of Psychology, of a recent article on the effects of PTSD on IDF combat veterans’ wives, recently published in the prestigious journal Psychological Trauma. “For instance, parents seeking to comfort a traumatized child may unintentionally entrench her fears. They do it out of love, but the result is still damaging. That’s why, when it comes to trauma, evidence-based interventions are so important.” It’s also, she continues, why trauma can’t be treated as the problem of a single patient. Indeed, after nearly three decades of studying trauma coping mechanisms and more than 180 peer-reviewed publications, Dekel insists that there should be an emphasis on putting “families in the center.” The reason is simple: All of a family’s members are affected by another member’s trauma, and all of them play a role in his or her recovery.
Prof. Rachel Dekel
Prof. Danny Horesh
Dr. Yael Shoval Zuckerman
Established with Horesh and Dr. Yael Shoval from the School of Social Work in response to the lack of treatments for trauma and PTSD from a family perspective, Ripples for Recovery applies research-based interventions for real-time benefit. At the same time, center staff constantly assess their interventions’ efficacy, refining and updating strategies in response to patients’ outcomes. Recognizing, after the start of Israel’s war, that it was uniquely positioned to address the challenges so many Israeli families faced, Ripples for Recovery has developed three main types of trauma-informed family treatments: dyadic treatment, family treatment, and support for family members. Along with helping hundreds of families across the country directly, the center also trained government and IDF counselors in family-coping best practices, thus widening the circle of impact and raising the country’s standard of care. In addition to helping Israeli society emerge stronger after the war, Dekel hopes these best practices can help families in other countries manage trauma successfully.
“There was a family whose children were afraid to leave the house because of rocket fire. We worked with the parents and the children on ways to manage their anxiety. This past Hanukkah, they sent me a photo of themselves at a public festival,” recalls Dekel. “It was truly an expression of light casting out the darkness inside.”
Healing Wounds in Wartime
Number of social workers and psychologists in the Ripples for Recovery Clinic
Couples and families treated
Mental-health professionals and community representatives who attended lectures by clinic staff
Institutional partners, including the IDF, the Ministry of Defense Rehabilitation Department, the National Insurance Institute, and resilience centers throughout Israel.
