Shani Pitcho-Prelorentzos

This study examined governmental betrayal trauma, defined as the experience of being harmed or insufficiently protected by the state, among Israeli civilians during the Israel-Hamas war. Drawing on institutional betrayal theory, we investigated how trust in government, including competence, benevolence, and integrity, and system justification relate to governmental betrayal trauma and whether system justification mediates the association between trust in government and governmental betrayal trauma. A convenience sample of 832 Israeli adults completed self-report measures, adapted to the wartime context. Structural equation modeling revealed that higher trust in governmental competence and benevolence, but not integrity, was associated with lower governmental betrayal trauma. System justification was positively related to governmental benevolence and integrity, but not competence, and in turn was negatively associated with governmental betrayal trauma. The association between integrity and governmental betrayal trauma was fully mediated by system justification, whereas benevolence showed a partly mediated effect. These findings identify governmental betrayal trauma as a distinct source of harm and extend betrayal trauma theory from interpersonal and organizational settings to the state level. During crises, state protection failures may be felt as betrayal, akin to a caregiver who fails to safeguard a child or, worse, inflicts harm directly upon civilians. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Posthumous sperm retrieval (PHSR) situates fertility clinicians at the paradoxical intersection of medical practice: creating the possibility of life during encounters with the dead. Little is known about how practitioners navigate the tension between professional duty and human vulnerability in such an extreme context. To address this research gap, in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 Israeli medical professionals (physicians, embryologists, and laboratory staff) directly involved in PHSR during a period of heightened national loss. Interpretative phenomenological analysis revealed cyclical psychological shifting between three themes: detachment, breaches, and connection. Detachment was initiated through technical framing, selective attention, and intentional imaginative devices, enabling task performance under emotional strain. Breaches in detachment emerged via sensory or symbolic intrusions—a glimpse of a face or name, media coverage, or contact with bereaved families—that punctured the defensive scaffolding, thereby re-humanizing the deceased. Connection followed, ranging from acts of meaning-making to empathic attunement to families’ needs, before practitioners ultimately re-asserted distancing mechanisms in order to resume their work. Interpreted through an integrative framework that bridges Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the lived body with Winnicott’s concept of holding, these oscillations reflect an ethic of ambivalence in which professional functionality and humanity are jointly sustained. Findings underscore needed institutional normalization of emotional reflexivity and support of clinicians’ capacity to “hold” death while enabling life. The study extends scholarship on posthumous reproduction and medical humanities by articulating the lived dynamics through which care remains possible in existentially charged clinical contexts.

This study, based on secondary data analysis, examines how survivors of traumatic loss relate to death. Drawing on in-depth interviews, the findings show that survivors develop a paradoxical intimacy with death, experienced in shifting roles as companion, pursuer, protector, and sovereign. No longer a distant abstraction, death emerges as a constant, embodied presence that reshapes identity and everyday existence. Survivors describe moving fluidly between moments of attempted mastery, challenging or resisting death, and moments of resignation to its ultimate authority. This oscillation dissolves rigid boundaries between life and death, situating survivors within a liminal state conceptualized as death-saturated consciousness: a mode of existence in which mortality becomes irreversibly interwoven with lived experience. The practice implications highlight the importance of health care providers recognizing death as a continuing presence and supporting survivors in navigating this liminal condition.

While the association of trauma-related blame with adverse mental outcomes is well known, the underlying processes of blame attribution among interpersonal trauma survivors are still inadequately understood. Hence, this study aimed to develop a new theoretical perspective on interpersonal trauma-related blame with a specific emphasis on the interplay between psychological and sociocultural dynamics. This study employed a qualitative, systematic approach, using constructivist grounded theory to guide data planning, collection, analysis, and the development of the final theoretical model. The final sample consisted of 36 in-depth, semistructured interviews with adult survivors of various interpersonal traumas, purposefully and theoretically sampled. The findings illustrate the perpetrator(s), other(s), and self economic model of blame, which theorizes how, following interpersonal trauma, blame is specifically attributed based on the perceived sociopsychological costs of each blame trajectory. These costs are calculated according to what I term "affordable blame heuristics." The perpetrator(s), other(s), and self economic model of blame conceptualizes blame and the processes of projective and introjective blame attribution as being shaped in a selective, functional, and affordable manner. This model provides an integrated sociopsychological perspective through which interpersonal trauma-related blame is not necessarily perceived as an inherently pathological, intrapsychic symptom but rather as a cost-effective solution. By adopting this perspective, clinicians can gain a deeper understanding of their clients' experiences and how they attribute blame. That understanding can facilitate productive, joint investigations that help clients liberate themselves from the negative effects of the often self-perpetuating cycle of blame. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Volunteers have long been essential to the operation of rape crisis services, where they provide advocacy, emotional support, information, and referrals to survivors and their loved ones. While many volunteers describe their experiences as deeply meaningful, supporting survivors of sexual assault also poses significant challenges. Despite the growing use of chat-based hotlines to support sexual assault survivors, research on the experiences of hotline volunteers remains limited. This qualitative study explored how volunteers at Kolmila, an anonymous, Israeli chat-based hotline for survivors of sexual trauma, navigated and managed the stress inherent in their volunteer roles. Based on a qualitative-phenomenological approach to the thematic analysis of 31 in-depth interviews, three primary stress management strategies emerged: (a) leveraging institutional and semi-institutional resources, (b) employing separation and disconnection techniques, and (c) blending personal and professional boundaries. The complexity of the volunteers’ work stems from their need to balance the emotional burden of addressing sexual trauma with the unique challenges of anonymized, text-based communication. This intersection amplifies the difficulty of the work, as the absence of visual or verbal cues can intensify the distressing nature of the interactions. The findings are discussed in terms of the Job Demands-Resources Theory, emphasizing how the balance between job demands and available resources impacts volunteer resilience and well-being. Practical implications highlight the urgent need for comprehensive training and continuous support systems that can equip volunteers with effective coping strategies and that ensure a personalized balance of resources. Implementing such a framework requires substantial funding, which government agencies should prioritize as part of their responsibility to address the pressing societal problem of sexual violence.

This case study analyzes protest signs displayed during the period of January to August 2023 by civil society demonstrators opposing the proposed judicial reform in Israel. Through the social identity theory theoretical framework, we explored how these signs serve as a collective tool for enhancing in-group identification. In total, 437 signs collected through various means were qualitatively analyzed via inductive and deductive thematic analysis. The results elucidated how the direct or implied referencing “us” and/or “them” in protest signs functioned as a mechanism to enhance in-group identification: (a) forging group identity and virtuous attributes, (b) delineating group desires and aversions, (c) building group resilience via ethos and history, and (d) strengthening group coherence. We conclude that the act of bearing protest signs and the content therein not only represent social empowerment but also powerfully symbolize the inherent collective strength of an emerging, resilient, and steadfast civil society committed to liberal democratic ideals.