The trauma of humiliation in the occupied Palestinian territory

Abstract EN

Humiliation has been described as the pervasive and fundamental experience of the Palestinian people under occupation, underlying the varied military, social, economic, and human rights violations that have been imposed over generations.

We review the current social science research literature regarding humiliation in Palestine.

We then present clinical vignettes from psychiatric practice in the occupied territory and our observations of the Palestinian community, material which illustrates various aspects of humiliation in this context.

We argue that a multidisciplinary conceptualization of humiliation is necessary to account for its phenomena as an individual and collective trauma; sociopolitical, experiential, and psychoanalytic models must be integrated to understand the dynamics of humiliation and how these dynamics drive the experience for both victim and perpetrator.

Based on an integrated model, we describe several clinical tools for therapists to use that may be helpful interventions in the treatment of victims of humiliation in Palestine.