mental health – Jewish Independent

Making safe, inclusive space

Clockwise from the top left: Tanja Demajo, Shelley Karrel, Amanda Haymond Malul and Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman participate in a JACS Vancouver panel discussion Oct. 15.

“When someone comes through the door and says, ‘I’m an addict. I’m a recovering addict,’ do they feel judged or do they feel accepted? Do they feel that we are putting them in a box, giving them a label?” asked Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman in a recent community discussion. “We have to identify the illness, there’s no question about that. But, is that the only way to view a human being? I think to respect every human being for their humanity, that’s what people are really craving – respect and love.”

Baitelman, director of Chabad Richmond, was one of three panelists on the topic Building Safe and Inclusive Spaces for Those Affected by Addiction and Mental Illness. He was joined by Tanja Demajo, chief executive officer of Jewish Family Services (JFS), and Amanda Haymond Malul, a community member in recovery, in the Oct. 15 event presented by Jewish Addiction Community Services (JACS) Vancouver. JACS Vancouver’s Shelley Karrel moderated the conversation.

Haymond Malul would like to see more community discussions on addiction and people being taught acceptance. She spoke of the need to “have support from the religious leaders of the community, from every single agency in the community, to start talking about it – make it acceptable, educate.” (See jewishindependent.ca/help-repair-the-world.)

And we need to ensure that what we are teaching is in line with our actions, said Demajo. “If we talk to children about acceptance, but we don’t actually practise that, that’s creating double standards where we talk about certain things, but that’s not what people experience,” she said. This could be damaging, she said, to people who “really need that support and want to trust.”

We must see each member of the community as a human being, said Baitelman. Love is important, but, he said, “Love is on my terms, respect is on your terms. If I love you, it’s more a reflection of who I am. But, if I respect you, it’s more of a reflection of how I see you, what you are about – and I think that’s really important. Respect the humanity. If you can love them, that’s even greater. But respect is more fundamental.”

When Karrel asked panelists for tangible ways in which people could be more accepting and inclusive, with love and respect, Demajo said agencies are overwhelmed with the number of people needing support. She said it is up to each of us to connect on a personal level with others, accepting that it will take time for them to trust us enough to share.

“You have to build a relationship, and a relationship is not built overnight,” said Demajo. “I had a client who I often think of, a person who spent a number of years [in the] Downtown Eastside being homeless, not having pretty much anything in his life…. He would come to see me … and we would speak about books, because he was a huge reader and I love reading. It took him six months until he really started talking about things that were going on in his life and what he actually needed, and we started working from there. Now, he has a regular life. He has a home. He brought his family back. He is working. So, things are in a place that he wanted … a number of years ago. Recovery is a process of being vulnerable and, so, if social services don’t have the time to invest in people, I think we are setting ourselves up for a really huge failure.”

All panelists agreed that having a drop-in centre with people who understand is absolutely essential and that, while professional support would be ideal, it is not essential. To be kind, respectful and loving, you do not need to be a professional, they said.

While there are recovery clubs in the general community, Haymond Malul said it would be great if there were also one in the Jewish community – “having a safe place for people to come and be able to drop in, and know that this is the Hillel House of Recovery,” she said.

However, having a community place might inhibit some people from coming out, due to fear of being exposed, warned Demajo. “The other piece is that I do feel that what Amanda has done tonight, speaking of her own experience and being in the community, and [talking about] some of the things that were helpful for her, is important to start with; having those opportunities to open up the conversation – not just for me, in a professional role, but from a personal place – because that is where the relationship happens. I do believe that is the core of whatever we come up with – the core is the relationship.”

Each of us is deserving of respect, regardless of our achievements, successes, failures or addictions, stressed Baitelman. “The fact that you were created by G-d makes you worthy of the highest form of respect and no judgment,” he said.

“Why would I not be involved with somebody who’s in recovery?” asked the rabbi. “After all, these people are accountable. They’re working on character development and are improving certain areas of their lives that they have the courage to acknowledge need to be corrected. They’re actively making amends with people around them. They are working on a conscious relationship with G-d rather than on other forms of success that society often judges success by. This is really an achievement.

“How many of us would like to change even one iota of our character, and people in recovery have changed more than one iota. They have made an incredible change, which is so admirable and should command respect. I think that’s part of the attitude that should be helpful in the broader community, and how we act with people, and the stigma.”

Karrel closed the discussion by giving a brief synopsis of JACS and its services. “We are working to diminish the stigma of addiction,” she told the Independent after the event. “Let’s keep this conversation going so we all feel we belong in our community.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Benefits to writing memoir

Junie Swadron recently released her latest book. (photo from Junie Swadron)

The Nov. 3 release of Junie Swadron’s most recent book, Your Life Matters! 8 Simple Steps to Writing Your Story, could not have arrived on the shelves of booksellers at a more opportune time. The pandemic has presented an occasion for self-reflection, and a chance to place memories and contemplations onto paper and computer.

Swadron, a Victoria-based psychotherapist, author and writing coach, hopes the book will aid prospective memoirists in writing their story, breaking through blocks with confidence and freeing them from what may have been a painful past. Hard lessons of life can become the greatest gift, she says, and writers can inspire others with the wisdom they have gained.

“In my 30 years practising psychotherapy, the most common theme among clients – whether they be CEOs of large companies or art students – is low self-esteem. Most people don’t value what they have achieved and don’t know how to recognize the good in themselves, to varying degrees,” Swadron, who is Jewish, told the Independent.

“This is a book for people to look at their lives and see the value, the beauty and the contributions they have made. And then to write their life stories from an empowered place, from a place of feeling strong, tall and proud. Not in an egoistic way, but in a way that they can say, ‘Hey, look how far I’ve come. Or, wow, I did that!’”

The challenge of writing a memoir can be daunting, the book notes, even for a professional with years of experience in their chosen field or an individual with a unique point of view. In Your Life Matters, Swadron attempts to guide the reader towards a focus on common themes – while remaining honest and truthful to the past – and the recording of meaningful experiences with certainty and ease. She also shares some of the factors that have helped her become a more assured writer and demonstrates how someone could apply these insights to their own memoir.

The book, too, provides therapeutic exercises for writers to use when drafting their stories. A memoir, Swadron said, can be a useful tool for an individual to work through difficult experiences and reframe their trauma. Your Life Matters lists steps to record the significance of life’s major events and influences. According to Swadron, memoir writing then becomes a memorable and achievable goal.

“The book is for anyone who wants to recount their life journey, whether they be a senior or an entrepreneur, and take the time to understand more about themselves throughout the process and transform pain from the past. What sets me apart from other writing coaches is being a psychotherapist. Not only do I know how to teach people how to write books, I get them to dive deep into their story and come out the other side stronger, as a result of them knowing who they are,” she explained.

“Say a person found a weight loss program and it’s really successful,” Swadron posited. “They got into it in the first place because they needed to lose weight. They lost 200 pounds, kept it off, and they need to not only write the story of how they did that but who they were as someone struggling with a food addiction. And who they have become since they have achieved their maximum goal of what is healthy for them. They need to put themselves in the story for others to be able to relate to whatever it is they are passionate about because they have found a solution and can assist others going through a similar struggle to find their way with more ease and grace.”

She cites her operating principle as “your soul meets you on the page and something shifts. You begin to stand taller. Then, one day, you notice your voice on the page has become your voice in the world.”

Swadron has three previous titles to her credit: Colouring Your Dreams Come True, a colouring book for people of all ages, Re-Write Your Life and Write Where You Are. Additionally, she has penned a piece for the stage, Madness, Masks and Miracles, a play to dispel myths and stigmas about mental illness. Last year, she founded the Academy for Creative and Healing Arts (ACHA) for people with mental health challenges.

Beyond her books, Swadron provides workshops, online courses and meetings throughout the year – all of which are currently taking place on Zoom – to help people with their writing. These include an author mentorship program, a class on creativity during COVID-19 and a Sunday morning “sacred” writing circle. For more information, visit her website, junieswadron.com.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Uncovering the story within

A participant in Yehudit Silverman’s The Story Within process shows off their self-made mask. (photo from Yehudit Silverman)

This past spring, Prof. Yehudit Silverman’s new book came out. In The Story Within: Myth and Fairy Tale in Therapy, the Concordia University professor emerita walks people through a step-by-step process to healing.

“When a person embarks on this journey, they feel called to a story, but they don’t know why,” said Silverman. “And it’s the sense of the unknown that’s really important…. Sometimes, in conventional therapy, we just go around in circles and might not necessarily get to the deeper layers that are inaccessible to us. But, through the arts and through the use of a character from a myth or fairy tale, gradually we can access those areas in ourselves.”

In Silverman’s approach, clients start by choosing their own story after going through a couple of exercises. “That process of choosing the story is therapeutic and healing in itself, because it’s part of the person’s sense of their own sense of knowing their own strengths and their own intuition, which is really important,” she explained. “Also, it’s important to stay with one character in a story for a long time, allowing the depth work to be done … recognizing what the character’s quest is, which is so important in myth and fairy tale, which is why I think they are still so relevant.

“The protagonist is on a quest and has to face obstacles and challenges,” she continued. “That can be so helpful when people are facing their own challenges and obstacles, so they don’t feel so alone. Also, they get to work with fiction, which is very safe, providing a certain amount of distance.”

People choose their stories for different reasons.

“Someone might be really drawn to a character that is having to do an impossible task, like in Rumpelstiltskin, where the girl has to make straw into gold,” said Silverman. “A lot of people think they are facing an impossible task, so they might then choose that story.

“Sometimes, it’s just the title of the story. I worked with an adolescent who was homeless and, sadly, addicted to drugs. When I worked with her, she chose the story of the handless maiden, which led to, sadly, to the revelation of her having been abused as a child. It was just the title that drew her.”

Once people choose a character, they start to build a mask. Then, they build the environment for the character and go through the steps that are described in Silverman’s book. The process is usually done within the context of a group, so that it is witnessed, which, according to Silverman, aids significantly in healing.

“They work with other people so that, at some point, they actually direct someone else in their mask and in their costume,” she said. “They get to look at what their character looks like to an outsider. And then, they have people embodying the obstacle and the helper, so they actually embody going through the quest and the challenges of the character.”

Silverman once worked with an anorexic teen who chose the character of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. “For her, the tornado was her eating disorder that took her to the Wonderful Land of Oz … which was, for her, magical. It was the ‘Land of Starvation’ and the good witch, Glenda, was actually evil for her, because she was trying to get her to go back to Kansas…. I realized that, for her, everyone in the hospital was evil, was going against what she felt was her sense of reality and her sense of what was magical and important, which was her starvation.

“And so, little by little, she worked with it and she embodied the tornado,” said Silverman. “She was actually swirling around and started crying, and realized how destructive it was. It was the first time she had had that realization – she didn’t have it when people were just talking to her.”

The teen connected and embodied the “chaotic energy of the tornado,” said Silverman. “She began to realize it was destructive and, then, she very slowly started healing. But, for her, having that story was essential.”

Although COVID-19 has made holding in-person group sessions impossible for Silverman, it has opened the door to including people from all over the world in the online groups she leads.

The Story Within outlines Silverman’s process step-by-step, taking readers through each one, and it can be useful for both therapists looking to implement the technique, as well as anyone wanting to understand why they do what they do.

“If you’re going through something that is severe or you are in crisis, you should definitely see a therapist,” said Silverman. “And, if you’re going to use the book, you should only use it in context of therapy. But, for people looking for personal healing and a way to have creative reflection about what their life and quest is, then it is definitely for those people – for seekers, for artists and, also, for therapists, as something to integrate into their process with clients. And that’s something I do a lot of right now – supervising therapists insofar as how to integrate this into their work.”

Silverman said already established groups can use the book, as well, to form a more solid structural foundation perhaps. And, “there are so many people at home right now, and they are really questioning what their life is about,” she added. With the anxiety, she said, “having this structure, where they can go through a creative process … is so life-giving. It really allows us to express what’s going on inside into an outside form.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Want to be a therapist?

Avrum Nadigel’s latest book, which he co-authored with the late Dr. David Freeman, is aimed at people contemplating a career in family therapy. (photo from Avrum Nadigel)

Therapist Avrum Nadigel’s latest book hit the shelves this month. Co-authored with the late Dr. David Freeman, Where Would You Like to Start: A Master Therapist on Beginning Psychotherapy with Families is structured as a conversation or interview between veteran therapist Freeman and then-newish therapist Nadigel.

Nadigel is a family marriage therapist based in Toronto. Originally from Montreal, where he had worked for the Jewish community for years, he moved to Vancouver for a spell. It was here that he met Freeman (who passed away in 2010).

Freeman had brought in various therapists to speak on marriage, love and respect at different events. Attending these lectures, Nadigel found what the therapists had to say “redundant and I didn’t find it very helpful for me. I had a pretty severe case of fear of commitment, and they all rambled on about the same thing. But, when David spoke, it blew my mind.”

About a year after hearing Freeman speak, Nadigel met, online, the woman who would become his wife, Dr. Aliza Israel. “She is from Vancouver, but was staying in Toronto at the time,” said Nadigel. “Now, we’re married and have three kids. And that all started because of David’s talk in Vancouver. David’s talk introduced me to a type of therapy called family systems theory.’”

Nadigel read many books on the topic, including Freeman’s, which made Nadigel rethink his previously held suppositions about relationships and marriage. “I changed the way I practise with my own clients,” he said.

Nadigel moved to Toronto when he was accepted into a residency there. He started up a private practice and began to look for someone to mentor him. At his wife’s suggestion, he reached out to Freeman in Vancouver, who, although semi-retired, was happy to supervise Nadigel via Skype.

Nadigel recalled some of the game-changing ways in which Freeman changed his way of thinking.

“When I was single, if I felt anxious or not good in a relationship, I was taught that this meant there was something wrong,” said Nadigel by way of example. A relationship “should be lovely, giving and with good communication, but, as soon as I get anxious, I bolt. Then, David comes around and goes … ‘Perhaps your own internal states of anxiety have nothing to do with the people you’re dating, but with your own internal struggle itself.’ It really changed how I saw discomforting feelings in intimate relationships. It helped me sit with them longer.”

Thinking about his eventual marriage to Israel, Nadigel said, “I often think back to that time and think, ‘How did all this work?’ Maybe, it was one part luck, one part theory and one part having a good therapist in my corner.”

In addition to Freeman’s counsel, Nadigel has done much study on family systems, notably he did post-graduate training with the Western Pennsylvania Family Centre, which teaches Bowen family systems theory, as formulated by the late Dr. Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist and founder of the theory.

Recalling his conversations with Freeman, Nadigel said, “David was very worried about two things. Number one, that people were focusing too much on hacks and behavioural changes, and that the system was much more powerful than that … and that the system would often, not always, but often, thwart any attempts the individual would try to make the change. So, he was very concerned that there were so few therapists offering a larger perspective about human suffering.

“The second thing he was very worried about – I think this is because he was a grandfather at the time of his death, he had two grandkids – was about the disconnect from wise elders in society. I think that’s really coming home to roost right now, the fact that we have the hashtag on Twitter, where it says, ‘BoomerRemover.’

“Some people are thinking that, well, it’s good about this coronavirus – it’s going to kill off all the old people and there’ll be more condos. I don’t know what the hell they are thinking but we really do see the elderly as an inconvenience in a lot of cases, and David thought this creates an impoverished culture – that, when you think of traditional society, it’s the elders who share life lessons that can only be acquired over time, through adversity and history. You can read a book, but it’s very different if an elder tells you what it was like to survive the Blitz in Britain. And David thought that young people in their marriages were impoverished, because of their lack of connection.

“So, with those two things,” said Nadigel, “I thought, maybe, if I can somehow convince David to write another book, I could be the young green therapist and he could be the senior guy. He could speak to me and motivate the next generation of therapists.

“I thought to myself that it should be snappy and quick.… I threw him the idea and I think the same day he got back to me and said he thought the format’s viable – except that, in this case, it would be Skype calls between a young therapist and a senior therapist…. We quickly started working on this once a week.

“Then, David had the manuscript and was going on vacation,” said Nadigel. “We had a few more chapters to write; he really liked where the book was going. Then, I got an email from him, a very brief email, which was odd, because he was much more verbose. It just asked if I could call him.

“I thought, that doesn’t sound good, that maybe he was going to say the book sucks. I called, and it was his now-widow [Judith Anastasia], who answered, and she said, ‘Avrum, I’m sorry to tell you, but David died of a heart attack while we were cycling in Croatia.’ I couldn’t believe it. It was a crazy summer. My dad died, my son was born and David died.”

Several years later, with Anastasia’s blessing and to honour Freeman’s memory and work, Nadigel started to complete their book.

“The book gives you a taste of a master therapist, to experience the wisdom and thinking he brought to thousands of families and couples he’s worked with over 40 years,” explained Nadigel. “And, once you finish the book, you might feel it’s your responsibility now to go and further your training in this area.

“David’s life work was helping people understand that, if you want to do well with your own personal goals and struggles and gridlock, you have to understand what you’re up against,” said Nadigel. “And you don’t do that by just talking about your neurotransmitters and serotonin and dopamine, or meditation…. It’s about certain ways of the here and now, that you either distance or connect through relationships that are happening right now – that are happening with your mother, your father, your sister, your aunt, your cousin. The work is staring you right in the face right now.”

Family system coaching, consultation or therapy, said Nadigel, is based on “the theory and the road map of going back and reworking through some of the gridlock in your family. And those people who are successful at doing something and thinking differently [about] their problems with their relationships – siblings, spouse, kids, whatever – [are] bringing those successes to every relationship. And that does not happen in the clinician’s office.

“Also, this type of therapy understands that human beings don’t get into problems because of their thinking – they get into problems because they are flooded with feelings…. It tries to promote good thinking to balance out strong feelings, toward being a little more strategic in how you conduct yourself in your relationships.”

And Nadigel himself is an example of how the approach can work.

“I’ve often thought that, if I was reading about this book, the interesting angle I always found … is that I was a punk rock alternative musician in Montreal. I was commitment-phobic and really saw marriage and family, marriage considerably, as the death knell of all that’s good in life – [that it’s] boring and sucks the nectar out of a good life. Then, David comes along in Vancouver and he just creates a profound paradigm shift in me, and I have come to a wildly different understanding. I’ve become a marriage therapist myself, a father, all this kind of stuff, so a pretty fundamental transition.

“I was one of these people that, once upon a time, really had a strong distaste for the very thing I’ve embraced,” said Nadigel. “It really is all credit to this one little talk in Vancouver in the JCC. There’s hope there. It doesn’t take years and years. It could be a 50-minute talk.”

Nadigel has created a blog and podcast to support the new book. To access it, visit nadigel.com/start. Electronic and hard copy versions of Where Would You Like to Start are available at amazon.ca.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Depression insidious

The author with her dog, Kesem. (photo from Dolores Luber)

It was mid-March. All I had been hearing and seeing on the news were the words and images related to contagion, epidemic, China’s wet markets, people enjoying the delicacy of cooked bats, pandemic and COVID-19. It was getting louder and closer, somehow it traveled from China across the Pacific to Vancouver. We were now dealing with the pandemic in Vancouver, we were in lockdown, even if the government never called it that.

In a flash, my household emptied out. My housemate, a University of British Columbia student, went back home; all her courses were now online. My boarder, a psychiatric nurse, scared of catching the virus and infecting me and her immune-compromised partner, took a six-month leave of absence from her work and joined him on a sailboat off the coast of Vancouver Island. I cleaned and organized and then it hit me – I was alone in the house with my Standard Poodle puppy Kesem. His name means “magic” in Hebrew and he truly is a wonderful companion, but….

Lockdown, what was that? We all had to create our own version. I maintained my Hebrew classes by means of Zoom, I continued working out with two personal trainers in my home gym. We did not touch each other. I went to the off-leash dog park every afternoon. We practised social distancing.

Then, a classmate of mine became hospitalized with the virus – I had not seen her for 10 days. I isolated myself for an additional week, not one of our group became ill. She is the only one I know who has contracted the virus. I was feeling proud of myself, I was managing well. As the editor-in-chief, I had produced the July edition of Senior Line magazine for Jewish Seniors Alliance on schedule. It was a labour of love, responding to the pandemic and the issues of the times. Everything was under control.

July 22 is my birthday. At the beginning of July, I began to feel very lonely. I had not seen any of my four sons, daughters-in-law or nine grandchildren for a long time. The planned family reunion in Oakville, Ont., was an event I had been looking forward to. My children had grown up in Beaconsfield, Que., and my youngest son had organized a fabulous get-together of all his friends who lived in the neighbourhood during his childhood. Photographs were collected, videos created, all plans had been made before the lockdown.

We gradually began to understand that the situation was not going to end soon; we were in it for the long haul. The reunion was canceled. I always see my children on my birthday, but, this time, I received FaceTime calls, beautiful cards, splendid flowers, but no hugs, no kisses, no warmth, no human touches. My thoughts were becoming very negative and gloomy; worst-case scenarios played in my head. I thought of moving back to Ontario to be with my youngest son; I researched buying a house in Oakville. I was experiencing symptoms of depression.

As a retired psychotherapist, I recognized the symptoms – among them, exaggerated feelings of sadness and loneliness. I made an effort to study more and read more Hebrew. I pushed harder in my workouts with my trainers. I developed and implemented a plan for the fall Senior Line magazine. By the end of July, I was thinking in a more balanced fashion. I had gotten through the rough spot and was well again.

Depression can be insidious, it can creep up on you. It is important to do a reality check with friends or family members from time to time. Isolation warps the processes of the brain. The chemicals in our brains can become unbalanced. Usually increased physical activity and enhanced social interaction can counteract the symptoms of mild depression. Beware!

Dolores Luber, a retired psychotherapist and psychology teacher, is editor of Jewish Seniors Alliance’s Senior Line magazine and website (jsalliance.org). She blogs for yossilinks.com and writes movie reviews for the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library website.

Parenting in pandemic

The Rohr Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) has recently published Parenting in a Pandemic: A Guide for the Perplexed. Part of Project L’Chaim, a new Vancouver-wide youth mental health initiative in memory of Steven Diamond, the 36-page booklet is filled with insights and practical tools from 14 mental health experts to help parents and educators support their teens through the current crisis.

New York-based Rabbi Zalman Abraham runs the marketing and strategic planning for JLI. “We are the largest Jewish adult education network in the world, operating in over 2,000 locations,” said Abraham, who has been working in this role for the past 11 years or so.

Prior to joining JLI, Abraham authored courses and books, was an editor at askmoses.com and served in various teaching capacities. He was born in Brooklyn, grew up in South Africa, and did his schooling in the United States and Israel.

“My father is very active in dealing with the opioid crisis in South Africa,” Abraham told the Independent in a phone interview. “He’s known as the ‘addicts rabbi.’ There were times when I was growing up where there were up to six or seven addicts living in our house, because there was no better alternative then…. My father was involved with hundreds and hundreds of addicts, and overseeing their rehabilitation. He ran a halfway house, so I have a little bit of a background in that area.”

Abraham’s study of Chassidic philosophy deals a lot with Torah hanefesh, which can be loosely translated as psychology. The rabbi explained that this “is how Judaism informs us about our emotional and mental state and character, which is very relevant to addressing some of the very real mental health challenges our society is experiencing today.”

JLI has been offering courses for about 20 years, said the rabbi. “Over the past 10 years or so, many of our courses have focused on continuing education for professionals. We started with the legal profession, with courses in ethics and comparative talmudic and civil American and Canadian law. These were accredited by various bar associations of states [and provinces] across North America, including … the Law Society of British Columbia – they accredit for official continuing education credits for lawyers and attorneys…. We then began offering continuing medical education for medical professionals. Over the past few years, our most successful courses have been for mental health professionals, accredited by the American Psychological Association for psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, social workers and the like.

“This is an area where Jewish wisdom informs the professional world and answers a real need. The challenge with mental illness, chemical imbalances aside, is often a result of a build-up of crisis, where a person has one crisis and another … their experiences compound, [they] have trouble envisioning a future, finding hope.… They have trouble with self-esteem, with feeling confident about life, and with finding meaning and purpose in life. These are all areas that Jewish wisdom addresses in a real way, giving people a framework within which they can find meaning and purpose.”

JLI’s international program is called My Life is Worth Living. In the Metro Vancouver area, they run the program called Project L’Chaim (“To Life”), a suicide prevention project sponsored by the Diamond Foundation in memory of Gordon and Leslie Diamond’s son Steven, whose Hebrew name was Chayim.

“We use the already existing infrastructure to educate those on the frontlines who are interfacing with teens and youth – training them to become more professionally equipped to be able to support the emotional needs of the teens in their care,” explained Abraham.

“From 2007-2017 in the U.S., there’s been a 56% rise in teen suicide. This is despite all the efforts and energies being invested in this area. This is an issue that’s getting worse and isn’t yet contained – this is in the general (not Jewish-specific) population.… There’s definitely a greater need for mental health support now than there ever was before.

“And, especially now, with COVID-19, all of this is being exacerbated. To put things into perspective, only about 10% of those who need mental health treatment get it. Even then, it’s with an average delay of 10 years between the onset of symptoms and the first treatment, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

“Stigma is a big enemy to mental health treatment. No one wants to be labeled with a mental health diagnosis and carry that around with them for life. That stigma gets in the way of people getting the help they need.”

JLI’s approach is not clinical, but is supported by a clinical advisory board that includes Thomas Joiner, author of Why People Die by Suicide and other books on understanding why people commit suicide; Jonathan Singer, president of the American Association of Suicidology; University of British Columbia suicide expert David Klonsky; director of suicide prevention for New York State Dr. Sigrid Pechenik; Madeline Gould from Columbia University; and Jill Friedman from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

“We provide professional training to those teen-interfacing adults; training that takes many forms,” said Abraham. “They learn to identify warning signs to the risk, to create a safety plan and to intervene when necessary. They learn what resources are available and what to do in various scenarios. They’re trained to be first responders. And they can isolate and help teens in the most critical situations.

“We also engage teens in group discussions, about underlying issues that are conversations for everyone – about self-esteem, hope, finding purpose and meaning in life, coping mechanisms to deal with challenges, and so on. These are conversations had outside of the mental health framework, so as to avoid stigma.”

In the Vancouver area, JLI has connected with many Jewish organizations and doctors’ offices.

“Our goal is to put it in the hands of every parent in the Greater Vancouver area,” said Abraham, who is a father himself. “It’s a compilation of 14 articles from leading youth mental health professionals, mostly from the Jewish world … to provide support to parents, so they can support their teens during these difficult times.

“The booklet gives insight to what’s going on for teens in the mental health realm and provides a lot of practical tools. The most frequently mentioned idea in the booklet is that famous line from the safety announcement on airplanes – putting on your oxygen mask first, and then helping others. People need self-care first.

“Youth, particularly teens, are social beings needing social interaction to thrive. Many don’t have this right now due to COVID-19 restrictions. Also, youth need clarity, something they can depend on … so parents need to know how to create an open channel of communication for teens to feel safe to discuss their feelings.

“The number one hope is that parents will become more aware of what their teens are going through…. Lastly and most importantly, is that they gain some tool/ideas to help them support their teens through this.”

Visit myjli.com/index.html?task=parenting for more information or to order the booklet.

“This is just the first step of many that will be coming out,” said Abraham. “We’ve already run multiple professional trainings and we hope to do many more. This is a beginning of a big, multi-year project.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Community milestones … JFS chosen for challenge, Krajden appointed OBC, Micner ordained

Following a North American call for submissions and an exhaustive selection process, Jewish Family Services (JFS) in Vancouver has been chosen by the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies for participation in Year Two of the NJHSA Jewish Poverty Challenge, an offering of the network’s Centre for Innovation and Research. The goal of the program is to help NJHSA member agencies better analyze the marketplace, launch and manage solutions, and implement sustainable measures for success to address the many dynamics associated with responding to Jewish poverty.

NJHSA has partnered with Start Co., a venture development consultancy firm based in Memphis, Tenn., with an expertise in launching startup, entrepreneurial initiatives and engaging municipalities, corporations and nonprofits in poverty reduction responses. The team at Start Co. will provide expert consultation assistance as JFS rethinks and redesigns products and services, adjusting assumptions and organization models. Throughout, special attention will be paid to the impact of COVID-19 on service delivery methods.

“We are so honoured to have been selected to participate in this challenge,” said Tanja Demajo, JFS chief executive officer, in a press release. “The demand for our services has increased during COVID-19 and we have had to pivot quickly. Although we have adapted, we are experiencing growing pains. This opportunity through the NJHSA and with Start Co. is timely in helping us address our pain points in an innovative way so we can be more efficient and can operate at a pace our clients are demanding during this crisis.”

Reuben Rotman, president and chief executive officer of the network, added, “The COVID-19 pandemic has even further heightened the critical need for innovative solutions to the challenges of Jewish poverty. With newly vulnerable clients reaching out for assistance in unprecedented frequency, the agencies are challenged to identify new ways of working and new efforts to achieve sustainable solutions for those in need.”

For more than 80 years, JFS has delivered a continuum of social services to individuals and families of all ages and in all stages of life in the Greater Vancouver area; its pillars of support include food security, counseling and mental health, care management, financial aid and home support.

The Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies is an international membership association of more than 140 nonprofit human service agencies in the United States, Canada and Israel. Its members provide a full range of human services for the Jewish community and beyond, including healthcare, career, employment and mental health services, as well as programs for youth, families and seniors, Holocaust survivors, immigrants and refugees, persons with disabilities and caregivers.

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photo - Dr. Mel Krajden — Dr. Mel Krajden *(photo from bccdc.ca)*

Dr. Mel Krajden is among those who will be appointed to the Order of British Columbia this year. The announcement of the 13 new appointments was made on BC Day, but the investiture ceremony will be postponed due to COVID-19 restrictions and held for recipients and invited guests at Government House in Victoria in 2021.

Krajden is medical director of the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) Public Health Laboratory and has made significant contributions to fields of research, including hepatitis, HIV, HPV and, most recently, COVID-19.

With the emergence of COVID-19, British Columbia and Canada needed urgent access to rapid, validated tests for the virus. Under his leadership at BCCDC, and relying heavily on his expertise, Krajden and his team were able to rapidly develop an assay for the province to commence testing in January 2020, weeks before other jurisdictions. Access to this test was an essential element in the management and control of the outbreak and the safety of British Columbians.

Krajden created the world-leading B.C. Hepatitis Testers Cohort, which integrates de-identified data on 2.4 million individuals tested for, or diagnosed with, hepatitis B, C, HIV and TB infections, linked to their corresponding healthcare administrative data since 1990, to create longitudinal medical histories. This cohort has produced influential pieces of evidence that shaped clinical and public health guidelines and policy in Canada and globally. He was instrumental in the development and continued progress of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research-funded Canadian Network on Hepatitis C, a multidisciplinary group committed to developing a national strategy for hepatitis C elimination.

Krajden was one of the key personnel in the STOP HIV initiative in British Columbia. This public health endeavour saw the implementation of acute HIV testing, allowing diagnosis during the most infectious period of the disease, resulting in timely interventions and communication to partners to reduce transmission. This undertaking helped lead to the lowest HIV incidence on a provincial scale in decades.

Krajden also played a pivotal role in global public policy changes in human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine dosing regimen and the associated reduction of financial access barriers to care. Similarly, his work with respect to assessing the utility of HPV testing versus traditional Pap smears is expected to contribute to guidelines that will benefit women worldwide.

In his educational capacity, Krajden has the reputation of being a wonderful teacher and valued mentor, training researchers, health professionals and students at all levels. He is known for his willingness to provide input and advice despite numerous other commitments, contributing to the success of others. His dedication further extends into the clinical realm, where he always has patient interests at heart and never hesitates to devote his own time to make a difference in client outcomes.

In appointing Krajden to the Order of British Columbia, it is recognized that, over many decades, he has demonstrated exceptional innovation, leadership and sustained contributions to the province, country and the world. He is a highly respected visionary, scientist and educator who has inspired countless researchers and health professionals with his clinical excellence, dedication and generosity of spirit.

***

Rabbi Mimi Micner

Tamara Micner, Rembrandt Koppelaar, Karen and Jack Micner and Dr. Talie Lewis are extremely proud to announce the ordination of Mimi Micner to the rabbinate. The virtual ceremony took place June 7 from Hebrew College in Boston. Mimi and Talie live in Watertown, a half-hour drive from Mimi’s new position, rab- bi at Temple Beth Torah in Holliston, Mass.

Mimi is the granddaughter of Kela (z’l) and Lito (z’l) Guincher, who are kvelling on the Richter scale above. She is also the granddaughter of Chaim (z’l) and Susie Micner, who are surely enormously proud as well.

Mazel tov, Rabbi Mimi! Bist 120!

Need for Courage increases

Corey Hirsch is among the honorees of this year’s Courage to Come Back Awards. (photo from Courage to Come Back)

“Believe me when I say that the stories we share are true journeys of bravery, resilience and strength in the face of adversity. They will leave you inspired and optimistic – a weekly dose of courage that I believe we need now, more than ever,” Lorne Segal, longtime chair of the Courage to Come Back Awards, told the Independent.

While the annual gala event had to be canceled because of COVID-19, every week this month, one of the five award recipients is being announced, and a video of their stories shared.

“We’re also sharing videos highlighting some of the incredible work of Coast Mental Health’s frontline workers during COVID-19,” said Segal. These can be viewed at couragetocomeback.ca.

“Every year,” said Segal, “the Courage to Come Back Awards raise critical funds that support over 40 of Coast Mental Health’s programs, which provide food security, mental health support for youth, peer support services and so much more. They are vital to the recovery of vulnerable people living with mental illness.

“In community mental health, the only way to meet this crisis is to increase capacity – that’s where Coast Mental Health comes in. Coast provides shelter, a roof overhead, a support system of caring individuals, and the dignity of a job and training through employment opportunities, all for individuals, young and old, dealing with mental health challenges.

“This life-saving work would simply not be possible without the generous support we receive during the Courage to Come Back Awards,” he stressed. “I invite people to watch, and share these incredible videos of courage. Then, if you can, I’m asking you to join me in supporting Coast Mental Health as they prepare for the second wave of this pandemic, a mental health crisis potentially as devastating as the first wave of COVID-19.”

At press time, three of the award recipients had been announced: Corey Hirsch in the mental health category, Amanda Staller in the addiction category and Rumana Monzur in the physical rehabilitation category; the youth and medical categories are still to come.

Hirsch was the first honoree announced. While not Jewish, he said, his surname is and, that “[t]here is very much the possibility that I have Jewish ancestry; it’s just never been investigated.”

A former NHL goaltender and goaltending coach, Hirsch is a commentator with Sportsnet, as well as being a public speaker and an advocate for mental health and wellness. Born and raised in Alberta, he was drafted by the New York Rangers in 1991 and was a member of the team when they won the 1994 Stanley Cup. Also in 1994, he won a silver medal with the Canadian men’s hockey team in the Olympics at Lillehammer. In 1995, he was traded to Vancouver, where he began losing his struggle with mental illness, but eventually reached out for help, and was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Of the Courage to Come Back Award, he said, “It was very humbling to realize that I was in that category of people. And it was probably the first time it opened my eyes to realizing that what had happened – with coming out with my story in the Players Tribune [in 2017] – made a colossal impact on the world of mental health.

“There were people that came before me,” he acknowledged, pointing to Sheldon Kennedy, Theo Fleury and Clint Malarchuk. “Their stories helped me get my story out and made me feel safe,” he said.

Kennedy and Fleury were both abused by a coach when they were in junior hockey. Malarchuk, a fellow goalie and a friend, struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder after his jugular vein was accidentally severed by another player’s skate, as well as with obsessive-compulsive disorder, even attempting suicide.

Hirsch also mentioned sports journalist Michael Landsberg. “I met with Michael and Clint before my story came out because I was just terrified. Those two guys really helped me,” he said. (For coverage of talks by Landsberg in Vancouver, see jewishindependent.ca/lets-talk-mental-health and jewishindependent.ca/illness-not-weakness.)

“OCD, typically, doesn’t start from childhood trauma,” explained Hirsch, adding, “Most people I know can tell you the time, place, where they were at when their brains just kind of broke. There could be childhood trauma with people, but, for me, [there wasn’t any]. I was on my way to the NHL, I had athletic talent as a kid, lots of friends, no real signs of mental health [issues]. I had anxiety issues, [but] a lot of kids do.”

Hirsch grew up in Calgary, with parents he described as loving, and an older brother. Sports were encouraged. “Hockey was something that, you know, it’s a religion in Canada,” said Hirsch who, at age 16, moved to Kamloops to play the sport. “I had a really good junior career, won a national championship. From there, I went on to the Olympics. Things were looking like I was going to make millions playing in the NHL. I was on the road.”

Hirsch describes in detail the type of OCD with which he struggles in his article on the Players Tribune media platform.

“I think that what people thought OCD was, was the hand-washers, someone that’s organized and all that. There was a misconception, through stigma and other things, about OCD and people thought it was that,” he told the Independent. “So, how bad is that? You wash your hands too much. They didn’t take it very seriously … because that’s how OCD was portrayed.”

Hirsch is concerned about overall mental health, not only OCD. “I want to change the stigma to all of it,” he said.

As to why the stigma remains, he said, “Well, people don’t like to look inside, afraid of what they might find out. But, what you find out is that there’s a better life out there and you learn things…. Fear keeps people from getting help, stigma keeps people from getting help. It’s a great built-in excuse to say that you’re a man and men don’t get help; it’s a great built-in excuse if you don’t want to look internally. I get a lot of that.

“I got help, I live a great life. I’m not perfect – I’ll never say I am – but I still play hockey. I can still drink beer, I can still fix cars, I can still do all those things that are considered manly – I haven’t lost any of that. And the people around me are better for it. It’s tough to look inside and a lot of people don’t want to, but I know now it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

One of the reasons Hirsch decided to open up about his experiences is that, back when he was at his worst, in the mid-1990s, there was no readily available information on what he was experiencing.

“I scoured bookstores,” he said. “I did everything I could to try and find some hope, or even self-diagnose or [determine] that I wasn’t going to be like this the rest of my life. I felt so alone. I found nothing…. Part of it was because I didn’t even know what to look for, and I always said to myself, if I got better, that, one day, I would tell my story.

“I didn’t tell anybody anything, other than people close to me, for 20 years. I kept it in my chest. [But then] I met another NHL player who was active, in my retirement, and I met him, and he was in rehab for drugs. We got to talking, and I know now that mental health and addiction go hand in hand, so I spilled my story to him. And he looked at me and he said, that’s exactly what I’m going through.”

That was when Hirsch realized his story could help others who are suffering. “I need to let them know that they’re not alone,” he said.

Vancouver-based Hirsch is waiting out the pandemic in Toronto with his girlfriend. He is writing a memoir about his life with OCD, he plays golf, and spends time playing his guitar. “I’m terrible,” he said. “But I love it,” he said. “It’s been incredibly freeing. Music is so powerful and great for mental health. Any kind of art, it’s a great way to express, therapeutically, yourself.”

He is continuing his work in mental health and would like to see it become part of the curriculum in schools.

“If I could have known what I had when it happened to me and I could have gotten help the next day, I would have never ended up making an attempt on my life,” he said. “I don’t know what my NHL career would have looked like, but I would have never suffered and gone through what I went through for all those years, because early diagnosis is crucial with mental health.

“It’s not hard to teach our kids in high school, middle school, about anxiety, depression, OCD, bipolar, those things. They need that information. Why are we withholding it from them?”

Hirsch pointed to a U.S. Centre for Disease Control study finding that the suicide rate among people aged 10 to 24 increased 56% from 2007 to 2017 (see cdc.gov/nchs/ data/databriefs/db352-h.pdf).

“It’s like anything – teach our kids in school and then give them the tools and then hopefully we can put a dent in it,” he said, citing a need for a countrywide curriculum in health class. “That’s where we’re going to end the stigma … and suicide needs to stop being a taboo topic, it really does. It’s real and it’s happening and pretending it isn’t happening doesn’t make it go away.”

A space for men to talk

Matt Zerker, the founder and chief executive officer of tethr, spoke at a July 8 webinar organized by JNF Future. (screenshot)

Matt Zerker, the founder and chief executive officer of tethr, an online community for men aimed at promoting honest and open conversations about mental health issues, spoke at a July 8 webinar organized by JNF Future, a branch of the Jewish National Fund aimed at adults aged 25-45.

Called The (Not So) Hidden Men’s Mental Health Crisis, Zerker’s talk touched upon some troubling numbers and outdated beliefs still too prevalent within the male population. Citing a study, he said 40% of men feel they have nobody to turn to when they have a problem associated with mental health. He added that the vast majority of suicides are committed by men, and many men continue to believe it is not masculine to discuss personal problems with others or to go to therapy.

To illustrate his point, Zerker relayed an anecdote related to men who do seek help: “When a man goes to therapy, he tells the therapist, ‘Doc, I am not like other guys.’ ‘Why?’ asks the doctor. ‘Because I’m here,’ answers the man.”

A chartered financial analyst, Zerker worked for seven years as a portfolio manager at a hedge fund in Toronto. Despite his outward success, he felt unfulfilled in his life, with little motivation to work, and he struggled for years with his personal and professional relationships. He resorted to substance use and found himself deeply depressed.

In late 2018, a friend told him of a men’s group. “It was amazing because it did not deal with solving problems but with finding space for one another and listening to what I was going through,” he recounted.

In April 2019, he went on a men’s retreat. “The morning after the first night of the retreat, I woke up to a feeling of peace. The panic attacks and the tightness in my head and body I had experienced for months prior were gone,” he recalled.

He returned to work after the retreat and felt he did not belong in the office any longer, so he quit his job, with no fallback plan. Soon thereafter, the idea to build a platform where men could connect with one another and speak openly about the issues they were facing as men hit him “like a tidal wave.” Thus, tethr came into being.

“I felt there was a need to build a space where men feel comfortable talking about these issues,” he explained.

Since its inception, tethr has established partnerships with Men’s Health Research at the University of British Columbia; HeadsUpGuys, a resource for men battling depression; and Movember, a charity devoted to men’s health.

Quoting a study by Dr. Michael Kimmel, which stated that 93% of men do not identify with the way masculinity is portrayed in the media, Zerker contended that men are holding themselves to an impossible standard.

“The normative framework for masculinity in our culture is self-reliance, stoicism and the idea of being the unwavering provider. It is an outdated, heavily indoctrinated belief in us as to how we should act as men and is reinforced in movies and commercials,” he said. “As men, we are trained to out-alpha, out-male each other. There is the fear that, if we say something to another male, we will be seen as a ‘lesser man.’ Everything becomes about how we look as opposed to how we feel. We externalize things.”

This can lead, Zerker maintained, to a lack of connection with friends, family and, mostly, with oneself. Men become unable to be truly authentic, he said. For a lot of men, he argued, this can come out in anger and frustration. “You show me an angry man and I’ll show you a sad, wounded boy inside,” he said.

Zerker urged men to be softer, more caring and more reasonable with themselves, and to not set impossible standards. He also encouraged men to reach out to other men and find out how they are doing during the pandemic, i.e., making a plan with another man whom one can trust to have a conversation that is more personal than talk of politics or sports.

“Most men feel like they cannot be the ones who make the first step, but they are thankful when someone does,” Zerker asserted.

For more information, visit tethr.men or download the tethr app on an iPhone or Android device.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Life with inherited trauma

Dr. Gita Arian Baack, author of The Inheritors: Moving Forward from Generational Trauma. (photo from Gita Arian Baack)

Dr. Gita Arian Baack, author of The Inheritors: Moving Forward from Generational Trauma, was in town earlier this month to speak at the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival and hold a three-day experiential workshop with the Second Generation Group in Vancouver.

The Ottawa-based counselor began her festival presentation with a quote from the late Israeli novelist Amos Oz, who wrote, “Our past belongs to us, but we do not belong to it.” For Baack, the quote underscores her message to inheritors of the Shoah – that “we were given life and an obligation to bear witness and honour the martyrs and heroes of the Holocaust. And that we also have the right to live full and joyful lives.”

“Generational trauma stems from devastating events which transpired before we were born,” Baack told the Independent. “In the case of the Holocaust, we have experienced it from birth; it is as if we were there. We carry an unrelenting sadness, sense of absence and betrayal.”

The ultimate question her book explores is: “How can we live a full life despite the difficult trauma we inherited?”

Prior to writing The Inheritors, Baack conducted doctoral research into the subject of intergenerational trauma and resilience, yet what she uncovered did not fit or go deeply enough into either. Often, resilience is described as bouncing back with support from others. But, she said, “You don’t bounce back from the Holocaust!”

She was resolved to unravel answers to these and other questions, such as why are so many of us resilient and compassionate despite our inherited trauma? Do we carry memory from one generation to another? How do we move forward, when the usual therapies for trauma have proven not to work for us?

“We are also faced with the difficulty of piecing together our family stories,” said Baack. “Much of our family stories are full of holes, unknowns and even secrets, our roots destroyed. Understandably, we have strong emotions but don’t know how to deal with them; for example, excessive sadness, fear of authority, worry, lack of trust, lack of safety, etc.”

Further, inherited trauma is often frozen, embedded in the brain stem, also known as the primitive brain – accessing it is difficult, but it can be done, she said.

Baack noted that ancient wisdom, the Bible and new epigenetic scientific research explain that trauma is passed onto generations in the DNA, and even the cells, for as many as seven generations. She strongly believes that this is the case if it is acknowledged and processed; if it is not, then it can take longer than seven generations.

Though Baack’s own experience is being a child of Holocaust survivors, The Inheritors encompasses others who have been victimized: Canada’s indigenous population, survivors of the Rwandan genocide and of several other horrible episodes of recent history. The book also looks at trauma on a personal level, from those who have suffered as a result of natural disaster, an accident, economic hardship, the justice or education system, illness or loss of a loved one.

The intent of The Inheritors is to serve as a tool for moving forward, said Baack. The book is filled with dialogues, poetry and stories from people of different backgrounds. Readers are invited to explore their story, and there are questions at the end of each chapter to help them process that story and, in so doing, transform their pain. At the least, in the end, they will have a written story as a legacy to their descendants.

The Inheritors has had other, unexpected, impacts. For example, the conductor of the North Carolina State University orchestra commissioned composer and flutist Allison Loggins-Hull to write a piece for an upcoming performance and she has chosen to write a work inspired by the book – Inheritors Overture will première on April 5 in Raleigh, N.C.

The group dialogues that Baack conducts offer a means of validation through other people with similar experiences and various experiential tools that can help further a deeper exploration of their trauma stories, the “undiscussables” and the unknowns. Group participants, she said, are often surprised by the creativity, laughter and camaraderie that arise.

The Inheritors is dedicated to (and inspired by) Baack’s two half-siblings. “From my earliest beginnings, I remember carrying a great sadness for my siblings, Henush and Halina Arian, who were only 4 and 3 years old, respectively, when they were killed,” she writes. There was no information about the circumstances of their death or burials, “But their existence was real and has mattered to me in an extraordinary way. And so I don’t fight the sadness; I embrace it. It has a special place. I am the carrier of their memory. This burden is the most cherished of all my burdens.”

At the age of 4 or 5, Baack had what she describes as a “knowing” or “inherited memory.” A “felt sense” told her, even at that young age, that her siblings, two of 1.5 million children killed by the Nazis, had both been shot in the back. When she asked her father how her half-siblings died, he said he didn’t know. Nonetheless, the memory (and feeling) she had inherited persisted, and could be placed on a spot in the middle of her back, with a knowing that her half siblings had been shot in that place.

Her research revealed that the timing of their deaths was before gas chambers had been built, and children under 5 were regularly shot. In 2019, a tour guide in Krakow pointed to the very street where the children and their mother were shot. To Baack, it was a stunning confirmation of her lifelong memory.

Baack has been consulting and coaching individuals and organizations for more than 30 years. She recently founded the Centre for Transformational Dialogue to help individuals and communities that have inherited devastating legacies. She also has written a book of verse, Poems of Angst and Awe, published in 2017.

For more information, visit gitabaack.com. Baack continues to research inherited memory and wishes to hear from others on the subject. She can be reached at [email protected].

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.