What October 7 brought into my consulting room
There are moments in my consulting room that simply did not exist before October 7. One in particular captures the complexity of my work today. During a session with an interfaith couple, the Jewish partner recounts an experience of antisemitism. My body responds before my mind does. It goes cold. Goosebumps rise. Tears come to my eyes. I recognize these as embodied echoes of intergenerational trauma. Yet, at precisely these moments, my task is not simply to stay with the Jewish partner’s pain. I must also remain aware of the non-Jewish partner sitting opposite me. If I unconsciously align myself with the Jewish partner’s fear, I risk reinforcing the other partner’s sense of exclusion. My task is to hold compassion for the fear I recognize while remaining equally curious about the partner who responds with irritation. Only when each person feels genuinely seen can they begin to understand the emotional reality the other is living with.
As a Jewish couples therapist and the daughter of a father who survived the Holocaust as a hidden child, I know that I also bring my own history into the consulting room. There are times when comments leave me questioning whether I have just witnessed antisemitism, or whether my heightened vigilance is shaping what I hear. Do I challenge what has been said, knowing it may fracture our therapeutic alliance, or do I hold my response in service of the work, while wondering what that silence costs me? Since October 7, these moments have become more demanding and more frequent.
They are not isolated experiences. I have witnessed dramatic changes in the Jewish couples I see, reflecting wider shifts across the diaspora. Family histories, inherited fears and questions of identity have become more present in my consulting room than at any other time in my career.
In interfaith relationships, I increasingly see Jewish partners feeling profoundly alone in their experience. They describe trying to explain why they are frightened or overwhelmed by rising antisemitism, only to be met with responses that minimize their fears, question why they are still so affected, or suggest they are overreacting. As therapy unfolds, it sometimes becomes apparent that the non-Jewish partner’s resistance is not simply a failure to understand. At an unconscious level, fully taking in their partner’s fear may also mean recognizing that the children they share could be seen as Jewish by those who hate Jews. Sometimes it is easier to dismiss a partner’s fear than to acknowledge one’s own.
Another dilemma I am increasingly witnessing is between Jewish couples who disagree about whether to remain in the UK. Often, the partner who wants to leave comes from a second or third-generation Holocaust family, or from a family shaped by the persecution and displacement of Iraqi Jews in the early 1950s. The partner who wishes to stay often has a longer family history and deeper sense of belonging in Britain. What appears to be a disagreement about where to live is rooted in profoundly different inherited experiences of safety, security and belonging.
Among second and third-generation Holocaust families, I am also witnessing the re-emergence of long-dormant survival patterns. Parents are coming to therapy concerned by changes in their adult children, yet as our work unfolds, many begin to recognize the same patterns within themselves. I see increased irritability, emotional withdrawal and a greater reliance on alcohol, drugs, food, sex and other soothing behaviors. Beneath these reactions often lies fear that has remained largely unspoken across generations. Only when parents begin to recognize these patterns within themselves can the conversation truly begin. What remains unconscious continues to influence us until it is understood, remembered and integrated.
For couples with young children, conversations about education have also changed. Decisions about schools are no longer simply practical. They have become conversations about safety, identity and belonging, reflecting deeper questions about what it means to raise Jewish children in today’s world.
These observations are not mine alone. In a Jewish psychotherapists’ circle that I established after October 7, one recurring theme is that prospective clients have begun asking whether we are Jewish before deciding whether to book an appointment. For some prospective clients, this reflects a wish to be understood without explanation. For others, it appears to influence their decision in the opposite direction. Whatever the reason, it has marked a shift none of us has previously encountered.
In a world that feels increasingly polarized, our capacity to hold different perspectives with curiosity, compassion and respect seems to be diminishing. I believe the consulting room remains one of the few places where the possibility of holding two different emotional realities exists, and I feel it is my duty to respond appropriately. When each person feels genuinely seen, curiosity can replace certainty, empathy can replace defensiveness, and healing becomes possible.
