Midwives of Peace

by Stacey Prince

At the Association for Women in Psychology conference last weekend I met a woman named Yvette Nahmia-Messinas, who had traveled from Israel to Portland, OR to attend the conference. Yvette is a mother of three daughters, Reiki master, writer, and therapist. She holds a BA in Psychology and a Master's Degree in Jewish Civilization. In 2005, along with her husband, "green" architect Elias Messinas, she established the environmental NGO Ecoweek to help raise awareness on environmental issues (www.ecoweek.org).

Since 1995 Yvette has participated in and led women's groups in both Israel and Greece. One such event was the first in series of retreats of the Joint Venture for Peace. The 2-day retreat brought together 40 Israeli and Palestinian women to meet each other and consider possible business ventures that they could carry out as partners. After the retreat she was inspired to write a series of poems, entitled, They all sound like love songs: Women healing Israeli-Palestinian relations. At Shabbat services at the conference, she shared these beautiful and moving poems with us. Here is my favorite of the poems, reprinted with her permission:

They All Sound Like Love Songs

They all sound like love songs
from the yearning to meet you,
know you, connect to you, love you.
They have tried to keep us away for so long.
Roadblocks,
barriers,
borders,
checkpoints
all aiming to stop
the flow of love and friendship,
peace and understanding,
humanness and common sense of us women.

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Hanging out with a bunch of cool feminists in Portland

by Stacey Prince

This past weekend I traveled to Portland to attend the annual convention of Association for Women in Psychology. I haven’t been to this conference in 10 years, and I loved it—it’s such a shot in the arm of inspiration and connection, simultaneously stimulating and exhausting. Shortly after arriving on Friday I presented a paper on being a psychologist-activist and integrating advocacy into psychotherapy. My co- presenters focused on building resiliency among individuals faced with negative decisions regarding LGBT rights, and the impact of such decisions on our straight allies and family members.

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Running Amok

by Stacey Prince

A disturbing article appeared in the New York Times in January. Entitled The Americanization of Mental Illness and written by Ethan Watters, the article outlines an aspect of American-led globalization that is especially relevant to TJP. He explains how mental illness is much more culturally influenced than the scientific community would like to admit, and how, in recent years, the American version of mental illness has begun to impact not only diagnostic practices but actual symptom expression in cultures where formerly indigenous forms of illness and healing existed.

Watters begins by citing research amassed by anthropologists and cross-cultural psychiatrists indicating that mental illnesses have not been consistent over time and place but instead are very much influenced by the culture in which they occur. A classic example that many of us have heard of is amok, a phenomenon seen in which individuals suffer "murderous rage followed by amnesia". This condition is seen solely in cultures in Southeast Asia. Similarly, hysterical leg paralysis, a form of what would now be called conversion disorder, existed among thousands of women in the late 19th century, and (the author notes) seemed to be a poignant expression of the restrictions set on women's social roles during that time.

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