We are in the fifth month of this unique 13-month course for mental health professionals, led by Dr. Nava Sonnenschein and Wasim Birumi. 14 participants, 5 Arabs and 9 Jews, have had an intense 4-day introductory workshop in which they discussed issues of the conflict with their colleagues from the ‘other side’, and attended a follow-up seminar in which they reflected and presented on the changes they, as individuals and a group, had gone through.

Currently the mental health professionals are attending a series of monthly lecture and discussion sessions with experts in psychology and related fields. This included clinical psychologist Wasim Biroumi on language; Professor Mustafa Kabha on the Nakba and war of 1948; Dr Ariella Friedman on gender, national, ethnic, and social aspects of working with groups; and educational psychologist Dr. Yousef Nashef (also a resident of Wahat al-Salam – Neve Shalom) on issues affecting the work of psychologists who treat people from the ‘other’ nationality or who supervise another psychologist from the ‘other’ nationality.