On Sunday evening, August 10, Let’s Get Real with Coach Menachem Bernfeld featured Dr. Binyamin Tepfer, PhD, CSAT, on the topic of trauma healing.

Dr. Tepfer shared that, since we had just risen from Tish’ah B’Av, it was an ideal time to address this topic. He asked: What can we do, and what can we hope for, in looking at our brokenness, both as a people and as individuals? He pointed out that as a people, we have suffered, been exiled, and lost a tremendous amount – more than any other nation – yet we are resilient. We not only survived but thrived, repeatedly getting up off the floor to rebuild in countless places.

This resilience is truly remarkable. After October 7, a poll of the world’s happiest countries revealed that, out of 160 nations, Israel ranked number five. How can a people be so happy while enduring so much? Do we hold a secret to trauma healing?

Some people can go through difficulties and emerge from them – if they have the support they need – while others remain stuck, trapped in blame or a victim mentality. What differentiates us, as a people, in our ability to emerge from trauma? And what helps individuals recover from personal trauma?

While there are different approaches to trauma healing, two main elements are common. When a person experiences a challenge, it often comes with a particular mindset. Trauma traps thinking in a narrow, dark place.

This thinking becomes constricted. For example, a person may believe, “I am the only one in the world going through this.” This isolation feels endless, as if there is no hope and no point. The Hebrew word tzarah (trouble) comes from a root meaning narrowness – a constricted way of experiencing life. The first step in any trauma therapy is to help individuals reach a broader perspective. With assistance, they must develop some objectivity to escape the negative mindset.

Viktor Frankl, the famous psychologist and Holocaust survivor, wrote that during the darkest periods of his life, he imagined himself on the other side of that time, teaching others how he survived. This forward-looking vision expanded his thinking.

We tell a mourner that he should be comforted among the mourners of Zion, reminding him that he is not alone in his grief. We give him a wider context in which to place his pain.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, who introduced the concept of mindfulness, discovered that when people suffered from chronic pain, they often focused solely on the area that hurt. By teaching them to scan and become aware of their whole body, the pain became just one part of a larger experience, and its impact lessened.

Similarly, ketamine treatment can pull a person out of specific traumas by giving them a sense of connection to the greater whole of the universe. This larger perspective helps put trauma in context and aids healing.

Thus, the first principle is recognizing that trauma is part of something bigger: Life has meaning, there are other people, and there is a broader world beyond the pain. There is also a timeline to life; this moment is not forever.

The second principle is different. Trauma often creates a strong urge to escape, numb, avoid, or disconnect from overwhelming feelings, especially when triggered by reminders: people, places, or conversations. This disconnection can lead to living apart from one’s own body and feelings, which often harms close relationships.

The second stage of trauma work is to help the person – safely and with proper support – to return to experiences, including difficult ones.

If a person swallows maror without tasting it, he is not yotzei (fulfilling the mitzvah). In the same way, if someone never processes trauma, he or she cannot truly emerge from it. The only way out of trauma is through it – at the right time and in the right way.

Elie Wiesel, the renowned writer and Holocaust survivor, once had a long meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. At the end, the Rebbe asked, “What can I give you?” Wiesel replied, “The ability to cry. I haven’t cried since I went through what I went through.” His world of feeling had shut down.

The Rebbe responded, “I’ll teach you to cry – and also to sing and laugh.” For the first time since the Holocaust, Wiesel was able to cry and laugh again. The Rebbe’s message was that when trauma shuts down our emotions, we are no longer fully connected to life.

The second essential in trauma work is safely reconnecting with the feelings of living through what we endured. This can be done through experiential therapy, journaling, or tracking emotions.

By giving people a wider context and guiding them through safe, embodied engagement with their trauma, they can emerge and heal. Trauma, in this way, leads us to a place where brokenness and openness coexist, and where healing can begin.

By Susie Garber