Dwelling in the Question: An Existential Psychotherapist's Reflection on the Israel-Palestine Conflict

The ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine is often approached through the lens of politics, history, and international law, and rightly so. These frameworks offer vital context and strategies for addressing state violence, human rights violations, and the geopolitical interests at play. But as an existential psychotherapist, I find myself drawn toward a different, more human-centred question: How are we to respond to this?

What can we do politically and existentially when encountering suffering of this magnitude? How do we hold the pain of others without collapsing into helplessness or moral disengagement? And what might psychotherapy, particularly existential psychotherapy, offer in moments of collective despair?

This blog does not seek to arbitrate guilt or prescribe policy. Instead, it aims to reflect, in the spirit of existential thought, on the human condition revealed by this conflict: our tendencies, defences, and capacities in the face of violence, injustice, and the profound challenge of co-existence.

Confronting the Abyss: Existential Themes in War and Conflict

Existential psychotherapy begins with the premise that life is fundamentally ambiguous, uncertain, and finite. We are beings aware of our own mortality, cast into a world we did not choose, and responsible for choices we cannot escape. In the context of Israel and Palestine, this awareness is not abstract; it is immediate, embodied, and generational. The conflict is not only political but existential: it concerns home, identity, belonging, survival, and meaning.

We see starkly the four "ultimate concerns" identified by existential theorist Irvin Yalom:

1. Death – The reality of death is daily and visceral, especially for civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, and southern Israel. This is not the existential death we ponder in quiet therapy rooms but the loud, dismembering kind that tears families apart.
2. Freedom – Both Israelis and Palestinians face different versions of constrained freedom. Palestinians live under occupation, blockade, and surveillance; Israelis live with conscription, constant threat, and a politics shaped by fear. What freedom means differs, but both peoples are profoundly shaped by forces beyond their control.
3. Isolation – Both groups experience existential isolation: Palestinians from the world, often spoken about but rarely heard; Israelis increasingly isolated by global opinion and haunted by historical trauma. The existential loneliness of being misunderstood or unseen underpins fear and distrust.
4. Meaninglessness – Repeated cycles of violence often lead to a profound loss of meaning. For survivors, what sense can be made of losing a child to a bomb or a bullet? What does "security" or "resistance" mean when it becomes endless?

The Burden of Narrative: Who Are We in This Story?

Existential therapy invites clients to examine the stories they tell about themselves. These narratives of victimhood, resilience, betrayal, and righteousness are not just psychological but existential. They help us orient ourselves in the world and make sense of pain.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is drenched in narrative. Each side tells a story rooted in suffering, trauma, survival, and moral clarity. These stories are not fictional; they are felt. They are passed through families, reinforced by education and media, and inscribed on landscapes of rubble and stone.

But narratives can become prisons. When fused with a collective story, especially one that defines us against an Other, we may be trapped in repetition. From an existential perspective, growth involves becoming aware of our stories and asking: Do they serve life? Do they bring us closer to others or wall us off? Are we willing to see where they stop being true?

Responsibility Without Control

A core principle of existential therapy is radical responsibility. We are responsible for our response even when we cannot control external events. Viktor Frankl, writing about the trauma of the Holocaust, argued that between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space lies our freedom.

This principle challenges both despair and detachment. It asks: What is my response to this suffering? What do I do with my anger, my helplessness, my grief? It does not suggest that everyone is equally responsible for the conflict but that we are responsible for how we bear witness.

In this light, the viewer of war footage on social media is not a passive consumer. They are a moral and existential actor. We might ask ourselves: Am I using this suffering to bolster my side? Am I numbing out? Am I collapsing into cynicism to avoid care? Or am I making space to hold the pain of others without rushing to fix, deny, or justify it?

Dehumanisation as a Defence

Existentially, dehumanisation is a defence against despair. It is easier to bomb someone who is no longer seen as a person. It is easier to avoid suffering if we believe the victim "brought it on themselves." Both Israelis and Palestinians are dehumanised in different contexts by different audiences, with devastating consequences.

In therapy, we often work with the defences people use to protect themselves from unbearable feelings. Rage can shield against grief, and blame can shield against shame. In the same way, societies develop collective defences. When a nation is overwhelmed by fear or humiliation, it may resort to violence, exceptionalism, or myth.

Our task, existentially and ethically, is to resist these defences, not by judging others, but by confronting our own. Can we see the humanity in those we are told to hate? Can we feel empathy without collapsing into guilt or paralysis? Can we act with moral clarity while still making space for complexity?

Grief, Guilt, and the Possibility of Mourning

Much of what prevents peace in this conflict is unmourned grief. Zionism was born from catastrophe, the Holocaust, and centuries of persecution. Palestinian identity was forged through the Nakba, the mass displacement and dispossession of 1948. Both peoples carry trauma that has not been fully processed, acknowledged, or held by the world.

In existential therapy, mourning is not just about "getting over" something. It is the process by which we integrate loss into our lives and re-engage with the world. In collective terms, mourning allows societies to face their past without becoming prisoners.

What might mourning look like here? For Israelis, it may involve acknowledging Palestinian suffering not as a threat to Jewish survival but as a truth that must be faced. For Palestinians, it may involve holding their grief without collapsing into despair or revenge. It may include witnessing, learning, and refusing to look away from the rest of us.

Bearing Witness: A Role for the Therapist

What is the role of a therapist or, more broadly, of any compassionate human being in the face of war? We cannot fix what is broken, but we can witness suffering with courage and clarity. We can resist the lure of easy answers, tribal thinking, or spiritual bypassing. We can create therapeutic or communal spaces where grief can be held and meaning remade.

Existential therapy is not apolitical, but it is not partisan either. It calls us to a radical empathy: not the kind that makes excuses for injustice, but the type that recognises each person as a thou, not an it, as Martin Buber might say.

Moving Forward: Toward an Existential Peace

There will be no lasting peace in the Middle East without political change: an end to occupation, justice for victims, and absolute security for both peoples. But even political solutions must be accompanied by existential change, a transformation in how people see themselves, the Other, and the meaning of life after trauma.

Such a shift is not naive. It is necessary. Leaders can sign political agreements but people must live in reconciliation. And that requires space for grief, for encounter, for uncertainty.

As therapists, we cannot end war, but we can help individuals heal from it. We can foster dialogue that moves beyond blame. We can challenge our clients and ourselves to live ethically in a world full of contradictions. Perhaps most importantly, we can remain present, even when presence is painful.

Closing Reflections

The Israel-Palestine conflict raises the most profound existential questions of our time: Can we live together after atrocity? Can justice and security coexist? Can memory become a bridge rather than a weapon?

I do not know the answers, but I believe existential psychotherapy invites us to dwell honestly in the question, to resist the temptation of premature closure, to bear witness with compassion, and to insist on the dignity of every human life.

In the words of the poet Yehuda Amichai, who lived in Jerusalem and knew both war and love:

"From the place where we are right

Flowers will never grow

In the spring.

The place where we are right

Is hard and trampled

Like a yard.

But doubts and loves

Dig up the world

Like a mole, a plow.

And a whisper will be heard in the place

Where the ruined

House once stood."

Sean Phelan is an existential psychotherapist-in-training based in Ireland. He is passionate about meaning-making, presence, and the art of sitting with uncertainty. His practice and writing are grounded in a belief in human dignity, even in the face of despair.