The "Vulnerable Hero" and His Wife: PTSD and Shifting Dynamics of Gender and Care in Contemporary Israel

Abstract

Abstract:This article seeks to contribute to the growing discussion on the shifting dynamics of gender and care. Based on participant observations in a support group for Jewish-Israeli women married to men diagnosed with security-related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the article explores what happens when the application of professional recommendations regarding the treatment of PTSD simultaneously resonates with and challenges collective gendered expectations of care. In the face of the men's new status as "vulnerable heroes" in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the twofold role of the emotional language of therapy is exposed and discussed. While the group's therapists operated as mediators between the participants' marital relations and the broader social context, offering the language of therapy as a means to help the women help their husbands by extending their care responsibilities, the participants themselves turned the group into an "accelerator" for exploring their daily lives beyond their traditional roles as caregivers. Utilizing their new familiarity with the linguistic register of therapy as a "Trojan horse" within the intervention framework of a highly nationalized disorder, the participants paved an unforeseen pathway toward expressing, recognizing and challenging collective gendered expectations.