Over the past eight months, since the Hamas attack of October 7 and subsequent events, Israelis have been subjected to great emotional stress. Before the war began, Tel Aviv University was in the midst of constructing a dedicated building for its National Center for Traumatic Stress and Resilience, which will house both research labs and a PTSD treatment clinic. In light of the pressing needs arising from the crisis, the university raised emergency funding to speed up the clinic’s opening in a temporary venue on campus and opened the facility on January 1, 2024.
Prof. Yair Bar-Haim, the center’s head, reports that the clinic is functioning quite well. “In a very short time, we have become very busy,” he says. “There is a great deal of demand, and we are doing our best to meet it within a reasonable time frame.”
The clinic is providing 520 hours per month of therapy to approximately 200 patients, and has hired additional therapists to meet the increasing demand. Close to half of the patients are reservists who have returned from Gaza, while another 20% are civilians who have been affected by the October 7 attacks, such as individuals from the Gaza border communities who are temporarily living in the Tel Aviv area, and others who were at the Supernova music festival.
The remaining patients have experienced post-traumatic stress in their daily lives, unrelated to the war.
While there are numerous mental health clinics in Israel, Bar-Haim says the TAU clinic has several advantagesover most others. First, it specializes in treating PTSD, which is unique in Israel.
“Our clinic is the largest in Israel with the specific focus of treating PTSD.”
The fact that it is a university-affiliated clinic enables it to rigorously collect and analyze data on the efficacy of treatment.
“We look at the data very closely to determine that the treatment we provide is useful – and efficacious and also to respond if it’s not.”
Finally, he says that the National Center for Traumatic Stress and Resilience has a dedicated team of therapists who have extensive experience treating PTSD.
Bar-Haim expects that tens of thousands of new cases of PTSD will be diagnosed in the coming months and years.
The National Center for Traumatic Stress will continue to play a pivotal role in treating individuals with this disorder, also when it moves into its permanent home on campus in the Miriam and Moshe Shuster Building for the Center for Traumatic Stress and Resilience, currently under construction.
