I was born in Israel in 1964 and grew up in Bat Yam, a somewhat rough working-class satellite suburb south of Tel Aviv. I went to high school at Ort Yad Singalowsky in Yad Eliahu where I specialised in mechanical drafting. After finishing high school in 1982 I served my compulsory two years in the Israeli army, where I first trained as a platoon commander - which was not a good move for my then fragile emotional state - and later worked as a draftsperson in the army’s central headquarters in Tel Aviv. I finished with the rank of Staff Sergeant.

When I was 25 and already two years married to my first husband, I enrolled at Bar-Ilan University in the Combined Program in the Social Sciences. This program included majors in Sociology, Political Science and Economics and it was incredible. I chose Bar-Ilan because it required students to take units in Jewish studies in addition to their major subjects. I have always had reservations and objections to Jewish religion and thinking but growing up in a secular family I knew very little about Jewish religion and law and my objections were not well informed. Bar-Ilan didn’t disappoint and I did gain a great deal of understanding of what it is in Jewish religion and philosophy that I didn’t like.

I left Israel at the end of 1991 and migrated to Australia with my first husband. I completed my Bachelor of Arts with a major in politics at Macquarie University in Sydney and then went on to do honours in Comparative Genocide Studies under the supervision of Professor Colin Tatz. I wrote my thesis on the reactions of the Australian press to the Reichskristallnacht (the ‘night of broken glass’ in November 1938). It wasn’t a great thesis but I learned a lot about the topic of genocide and the politics and psychology that surrounds it.

In 1997 I changed direction when I started a Graduate Diploma in Individual Psychotherapy and Relationship Therapy at the Jansen-Newman Institute in Sydney. In my second year I had to do a major project called the ‘Differentiation of Self’ based on Murray Bowen’s theory of self-differentiation, under the supervision of Dr David Jansen, the co-founder of the Jansen Newman Institute. David believed that therapists must be committed to their own personal work and must achieve considerable emotional maturity (differentiation) before they can work with clients. This project was a major turning point on my personal journey and a very difficult emotional challenge. As part of the research for it, I travelled back to Israel and also to Romania to visit my family. I received the class prize for this project.

During 1999 I completed a Certificate in Gestalt Counselling at the Illawarra Gestalt Centre under the direction of Brian O’Neil.

After moving to Canberra in early 1999, I felt ready to work with clients and in July that year I opened a private practice, Fully Human Psychotherapy and Counselling Services, that operated successfully for ten years.

In 2000-2001 I was the Secretary of the then Australian National Network of Counsellors Inc. (ANNC — now CAPACAR), and in 2002 I was the President. In 2002 I was also a member of the Liaison and Management Committees of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia Inc (PACFA).

I consider myself a humanist and have been greatly inspired by authors like M. Scott Peck, Herman Hesse, Rainer Maria Rilke, Ursula K. Le Guin, Erich Fromm, Viktor Frankl, John Berger, Martin Buber, Robert A. Johnson, Henrik Ibsen and Neale Donald Walsch. The areas that concern me are my field of psychotherapy and what I see as a gradual return to rigid 19th century style values in mental health and the situation in Palestine-Israel. I am interested in human potential and the possibilities that exist within our own human brain to allow us to live a more enlightened, mature and compassionate existence. I am deeply concerned about the way politics is done, and the fact that the people who rise to power are so often narcissistic and immature. I would like to see world politics transform into something more humble and down to earth that is focused on service and not on ego, power, privilege or status. I don’t think we can hope to fix any of our problems as long as the people who rule us are so emotionally young.

I am also concerned about the treatment of refugees in Australia and elsewhere, and am often wondering about the role that my profession has to play in world politics and in social issues. I have become increasingly interested over the past few years also in environmental issues like deforestation, sustainable living and energy production and the rights of animals. Ian and I try to eat organic food as much as possible. We eat very little meat and have recently joined the MacLeod Organics box scheme in our area. We hope in the future to be able to produce our own energy.

Since I gave up my Israeli citizenship in 2001, I have gradually become an activist for Palestinian rights. Among other things I am involved with Deir Yassin Remembered. I object to Zionist ideology and believe in a one-state solution in Palestine-Israel and in a full right of return for the Palestinian refugees and their descendants. To state it clearly, I no longer believe that Israel has a right to exist as an exclusively Jewish state at the expense of the Palestinian people. I support the growing BDS campaign (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) as a non-violent way to force Israel to abandon the occupation and transform itself into a free and democratic state for all its people, whatever their religion or ethnicity. I support the BDS because given Israel’s psychology and philosophy of life, I do not see any hope that it will ever change its ways of its own accord.

In January 2010 my husband Ian and I moved to the Scottish Highlands. We plan to re-open our counselling practice Fully Human Psychotherapy & Counselling in Inverness. Our work website is at http://www.fullyhuman.co.uk/.

We now live within commuting distance of the city of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands with our two cats who have recently joined us from Australia. I am a cooking and baking enthusiast. I bake all our bread, pastries and cakes at home and I use organic spelt flour for everything except pasta. I love birds and animals in general. I enjoy walking, music and cinema as well as reading good quality science fiction and fantasy.

Qualifications

Memberships of Professional Associations

  • British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) — Accredited Member

  • Counselling & Psychotherapy in Scotland (COSCA) — Accredited Member

  • Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) — Clinical Member

You can find more information on me professionally at www.fullyhuman.co.uk.

Page content last modified: 9 May 2010