Psychiatrist Samah Jabr documents trauma on film
Nisaa FM: - Samah Jabr is one of the first female psychiatrists in Palestine. Born in Jerusalem, she was exposed to life under military occupation, witnessing the impact of traumatic events such as imprisonment and home demolitions on the psychological wellbeing of Palestinians.
Jabr’s encounters and insights into the psychological impact of life in Palestine were the subject of a documentary released in theatres in France in November this year.
A testimony of cases and experiences of Palestinians
After graduating from the School of Medicine at Al-Quds University, Jabr pursued advanced training in psychiatry and child psychotherapy in France, England and Palestine. She has also been documenting her experiences since 1998, writing for media outlets and producing scholarly publications for specialised journals.
She tells, “I feel an ethical responsibility to provide a testimony about the cases and the experiences of Palestinians.”
Jabr says that she has encountered many victims of physical and psychological torture throughout her career, but it is always the less visible, less pronounced scars that strike her the most.
She relates the case of a young man who now sleeps with a bag of underwear next to his bed because he is in constant fear of re-arrest. Another case that left its mark on Jabr was that of a sisters whose mother was arrested by Israeli soldiers in a raid on their home. Fearing another raid, the girls slept in the middle room of the house for months instead of their bedrooms, fully dressed and wearing their headscarves.
“People are more interested in concrete injuries; the amputation of a leg or a head trauma,” she explains, “and we often don’t pay attention when it is not bloody.”
Documenting trauma on film
French film director Alexandra Dols contacted Jabr in 2012 after she had come across her 2007-article entitled “Dancing to Different Drummers – But Dancing, Nevertheless”. The article starts off with an encounter with a patient telling her how she was “dancing like a slaughtered chicken” when her son was killed, and then follows her other encounters that day with Israeli soldiers dancing at a checkpoint and later herself dancing at a family wedding.
Hesitant at first, Jabr wrote back to Alexandra in 2013 agreeing to the documentary. Jabr says, “I liked how Dols visualised my articles. She made me read them and provided images and pictures that make the articles, the themes and the ideas that I’m writing about, more visible and more pronounced,”
Having attended the first week of screenings in France, Jabr says she found the film to be a great tool for discussion. “Some mental health professionals who attended were challenging me about the question of neutrality and impartiality,” she continues.
The film was screened in Palestine and the Israeli group of mental health professionals for human rights, PsychoActive, also hosted a screening of the film. “There was a spectrum of different reactions,” Jabr said, “and the first reaction was silence and sadness.”
Some accused the film of being one-sided and lacking an Israeli perspective. “The director makes it clear from the first scene, where there is a conversation between an Israeli and a Palestinian, that she has decided to follow the story of the Palestinian,” Jabr explains.
Mental health in Palestine
Fifty years of occupation have left Palestinians with one of the highest rates of mental health disorders in the Middle East, yet mental health services continue to be among the most under-resourced areas of health provision, with insufficient budgets and personnel. Samah Jabr is of only 22 psychiatrists serving the occupied West Bank’s population.
“These deficiencies are not only influenced by the reality on the ground, but also by attitudes of policy makers in health,” Jabr says, “but in spite of these limitations, there is growth in this profession and we are doing a lot to improve it.”
In her capacity as the head of mental health services in the West Bank, Jabr is trying to develop a model of services that corresponds with the resources available. “I am trying to promote a hierarchy of services, by which general doctors, nurses and teachers can provide low intensity interventions to support the resilience and the wellbeing of people,” she adds, “to identify those who need help and refer the ones who need more specialised intervention to specialised professionals.”
Find out about Jabr’s latest film: Beyond the Frontlines: Tales of Resistance and Resilience in Palestine
Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com