The center for Trauma recovery

Before October 7, I was deeply skeptical of therapy. I honestly believed that people who sought emotional or psychological help were just wasting their time and money. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The work we’re doing together -especially the homework- has been nothing short of transformative. I genuinely believed I was beyond help. There was a time when I couldn’t leave my house without three or four hours of preparation, and even then, when the moment came, I would often become physically ill and fail to go out at all.

I was overwhelmed by thoughts and experiences I had never encountered before, and I felt completely trapped by them. Learning how to challenge my thoughts has been a turning point. I now apply it to almost everything I do, and the impact has been remarkable. I’m incredibly grateful for the care, effort, and commitment you’ve put into my treatment. The changes I’m experiencing are real, tangible, and they came far sooner than I ever imagined. This process has truly changed my life.

When I started the CBT training program, I was honestly pretty skeptical. I’m trained as a dynamic therapist, and I carried a lot of assumptions about CBT - that it isn’t deep enough, that it can’t really address complex psychological issues. At the same time, I was curious. Everyone seemed to be talking about it. At first, I really felt my resistance. My supervisor, Rotem Keren, encouraged me to try it anyway - what did I have to lose? It wasn’t going to harm anyone. So I decided to give it a chance and began working with the OCD protocol.

As I learned more, something shifted. CBT offered a combination I hadn’t fully experienced before: a strong emotional connection with patients alongside focused, structured, and very concrete work. I began to understand the protocols more deeply, connect to the psychoeducation, and even enjoy the process. I found myself thinking creatively - especially when planning exposure exercises that could genuinely help a patient move forward. What surprised me most was the depth of change. I saw how much relief it brought, how strengthening it was, and how patients’ sense of competence and self-confidence grew. This work is anything but superficial. When it’s done thoughtfully and thoroughly, it can be truly life-changing - even in a relatively short time. It does require persistence and belief in the process.

Some of the most meaningful moments for me are when patients start to relate to their thoughts with curiosity, try out new tools, and sometimes even smile in situations that once felt impossible. For me, the real strength of CBT lies in its practicality - the ability to take theory and turn it into small, concrete steps that create real change in everyday life.

After I finished writing, I noticed that the heaviness in my stomach had eased. My throat still felt a bit tight, but I figured that would pass.

Writing made me bring up details I hadn’t really thought about before. As I went along, I found myself going deeper into what happened on October 7. At the start of the exercise, I didn’t think I’d be able to write more than a few words, but by the end I had written three or four pages. While I was writing, I felt the experience very strongly and went into a lot of detail. I think I managed to let out things that had been stuck inside for a while.