As Gaza reels from unimaginable physical and psychological harm, the global trauma healing community has remained largely silent. Breaking that silence is essential if therapeutic work is to remain honest, ethical and grounded in the reality clients bring into the room.

The bombing has diminished, if not fallen altogether silent – so now the work can begin of healing the immense damage to life and limb, along with the natural and built environment, amid the ruins of Gaza. But these are just the visible scars. The legacy of Israel’s genocide will be re-experienced in psychological trauma, resonating through the lives of the people and, indeed, subsequent generations. Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian plastic and reconstructive surgeon, has called it “the biggest case of child abuse in modern history”.

Of all the milieux where it might be expected for this legacy to be a dominant theme of urgent discussion, with a focus on how therapeutic help can be given, the global trauma healing community should surely be prominent. And yet it has remained almost completely mute. In one of the biggest gatherings in the field, many thousands joined a seven-day Collective Trauma Summit last month, before the Trump-brokered ceasefire, with over 40 speakers and panels. Generalised terms such “trauma,” “conflict”, “suffering,” “social change” and “transformation” were prominent in the presentations and discussions. Specific mention of Palestine came there none.

As a psychotherapist specialising in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing), which I combine with Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, I’ve met the all too familiar........

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