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Every Israeli citizen has the right to receive emotional support. This is always true, and even more so these days when pain, grief, anxiety and distress resonate in all of us. However, there are barriers preventing entire populations from receiving the necessary emotional support: lack of awareness of the need for emotional support; inability to afford mental health services; or fear of actively reaching out to mental health services, due to associated stigmas.
‘Primary Emotional Support’ was established to bridge these barriers and provide emotional support to anyone in need.
Given the magnitude of the crisis and the urgent need to address symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress, traditional intervention assumptions regarding how, when, and where mental health services can be provided are no longer relevant. The conventional support methods that required contacting a hotline, online consultation, or scheduling an appointment with a mental health professional are insufficient for the many communities currently in need of emotional support. Therefore, there is a need to think about how to make mental health services accessible to all Israeli citizens in an innovative, unique and tailor-made way to fit the current reality. Mental health services can no longer hide behind closed doors. The current reality requires going out to public spaces and actively reaching out to broad audiences to provide them with opportunities to talk and receive emotional support.
Towards promoting these goals, ‘Primary Emotional Support’ was initiated. Our therapists leave the traditional clinic, reach out to Israelis at the home front to provide primary emotional support in public spaces. We are present in voluntary, war-time, community, and grief centers. We approach people and ask whether they are in need of and wish to receive emotional support, whilst diagnosing, addressing symptoms of anxiety and/or depression and, when necessary, referring individuals for further treatment.
Our intervention method demonstrates that sometimes a short conversation can make a meaningful difference and strengthen emotional resilience.
Primary Emotional Support
is the ambulance of the mental services
We are here to undergo this challenging period together, strong and united.
Photography: Shlomi Yosef
Photography: Oral Cohen
‘Primary Emotional Support’ serves as the ambulance of mental health services. We are here to undergo this challenging period together, strong and united.
The basic approach amongst people is “let’s hide it”, and we will not hide it. It is not shameful. All of us are coping now and the ability to place the emotional support outdoors, in the middle of the street, to be seen, is our strength. The emphasis is on being present. I like to compare it to the ambulance model: If there is a big event, there will be an ambulance in the premises, and it won’t be hidden, because how will you know it’s there? If you are hurt, you go to the ambulance in order to be taken care of. That is what we do as well” (Prof. Boaz Ben David, cofounder).
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