Please click on this link to contribute whateveryou can to keep this podcast on the air: https://thechesedfund.com/yeshivaofnewarkpodcast/keeping-the-ark-afloat With downloads approaching the million mark-andan archival library numbering in the thousands, the Yeshiva of Newark Podcast has been striving to continuously upgrade our content, and professionalize our audio sound, along with altering approaches in light of much appreciated listener feedback. A niche has been carved out that resonates with many on the wide spectrum of Observant Jews. This explains why we continually rank high in independent on-line lists of top Yeshiva podcasts. This proud edifice is in real danger of toppling and disappearing. We need the help of our listeners to continue to record and edit, and to promote a product that has been a balm and instructive to somany. Just 36 dollars, a minimum donation, from a thousand of you out there will keep us afloat as a New Ark of straight, intelligent,and humorous discussion, lectures, debate and inquiry - while thedestructive waters of ignorance and politics crash around us. Rehabilitation Challenges of Gaza Hostages and Traumatized Battle Veterans Trauma shakes up the personality and,sometimes, the very essence of its victims. Interpersonal trauma, moreover,often harms the capacity for healthy social and personal relationships which persists long after the traumatic episode. Prof. Juni explains the dynamics of these lasting effects of trauma by noting that the life of an infant is usually construed by the growing child as a very threatening existence fraught with colossal danger, interspersed by facets of ultimate pleasure and safety/security. This fixes the infant into a chronic state of anxiety where the stakes are most extreme. The concomitant behavioral stance of the child devolves into a fight vs. flight modality, as the other is perceived dichotomously as devoted friends vs. ferocious foe, demon vs. and saint vs.devil/angel. As the child develops, behaviors,stances, and attitudes moderate. Gray usurps black vs. white polarities, and extremist percepts are defensively repressed as they recede into the unconscious -- to find expression only in the dreams of older children and adults. Alas, subsequent trauma has the capacity to disrupt the mature defensive ego structure and often results in regression into the original terror-filled world of danger and extreme dichotomy. Juni likens the rehabilitated traumatized soldier or hostage to a recovered alcoholic who might slip right back to full-blown alcoholism – even many years later -- if his/her defensive wall is breached when forced to have “just one drink.” Hostages who experience threat and abuse in close quarters with perpetrators have been noted to exhibit the Stockholm Syndrome. Dr. Juni delineates the hallmarks of this syndrome which prompt somevictims to “side with their captors.” Such dynamics may include identification with the aggressor and acceptance of abuse as justified. Juni agrees with Rabbi Kivelevitz that such a stance may sometimes be psychologically rooted in an effort to minimize the perceived threat one experiences. It is clear that this syndrome will make it difficult for a hostage to adjust functionally to social and family functioning. Rabbi Kivelevitz points out a number of parallels between the reactions of soldiers and hostages to those of holocaust victims (who went on to be prominent political leaders, clergy, and visionaries), arguing that such observed resilience should be expected among traumatized soldiers and hostages. Dr. Juni, while agreeing with the parallel, nonetheless insists that despite the potential for adequate functioning among these groups, there is an underlying intrinsic damage to personality and egostructure which remains as a weak link which may unravel in stressful contexts. Drawing from his clinical work with spousal abuse, Juni shares an additional dynamic specifically relevant to hostages who were forced into sexual intimacy with their captors. In situations of conflation between extreme threat and sexuality, there is apparently abreakdown of specificity in interpersonal relationship functioning whichresults in a positive attachment to the perpetrator. This accounts for the marked difficulty of abused domestic partners to leave their abusers, just as it results in positive affinity of abused hostages toward their traumatizers.Rabbi Kivelevitz points to the Biblical story of Dinah, whom the Midrash describes as adamantly professing her “love” of her abuser, Shechem. Juni mentions a cultural parallel in contemporary Arab culture, citing a recent court case in an Afghani court where an abuse victim sued that her rapist be forced to marry her. Juni discusses a novel manifestation of the Stockholm syndrome he has observed, where family members of killed hostages have become proponents of the perspective of the Hamas perpetrators.Dynamically,...
