In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in Israel, many Jews in the United States reported not only grief over the attack itself, but also from the chilling silence from many of their peers, institutions and even their therapists. A new academic article has put a name to what has become a widespread psychological wound: traumatic invalidation.

Miri Bar-Halpern, an expert in trauma psychology and Harvard-affiliated clinician, didn’t set out to write an academic paper in the wake of the attack. Her first instinct, she says, was to help.

“I was in a state of fear and a need for control — for doing something — and I wrote in an Israeli Facebook group in Massachusetts, ‘If anybody needs support, this is my cell phone number. Call me,’” she recalled. “Not the smartest decision — I got flooded — but I quickly mobilized a team of about seven licensed clinicians. For about a year, we provided free support: one-on-one therapy, family sessions, webinars, seminars. Whatever the need was, we were there.”

As she listened to clients — initially from the Israeli expat community and then more broadly — she began to notice disturbing patterns. Many Jews weren’t just traumatized by the events of Oct. 7, but also by the response, or lack thereof, from the people and systems around them. Friends went quiet. Social groups became hostile. Therapists failed to engage.

“It sounded very similar to what I know from the field of trauma, which is traumatic invalidation,” she said.

That concept — a well-documented phenomenon in clinical psychology — refers to what happens when a person’s trauma is dismissed, minimized or denied, especially by those expected to provide care. It has long been applied to marginalized groups, including racial minorities and survivors of abuse. But, Bar-Halpern noted, “Jews were never included, because people didn’t see us as a minority.”

She partnered with fellow clinician Jaclyn Wolfman to study the phenomenon formally, collecting firsthand accounts and organizing them into thematic patterns. Their paper, “Traumatic invalidation in the Jewish community after October 7,” which was recently published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, documents how Jewish Americans experienced a range of invalidating responses after Oct. 7, 2023 — from being told the attack was “complicated,” to hearing their grief described as “political,” or being told they needed to denounce Israel in order to be heard. In some cases, they were simply met with silence.

The article draws on academic literature that categorizes traumatic invalidation into nine distinct forms. These include being ignored or dismissed, experiencing emotional neglect and facing overt criticism — such as being mocked or told your feelings are wrong. Other forms involve being unfairly blamed, having one’s intentions misinterpreted or being told your perception of reality is inaccurate. The list also includes controlling behavior, social exclusion and discriminatory or unequal treatment. The authors found evidence of all nine forms in the testimonies they collected.

One participant said that her therapist advised her to “separate your politics from your emotions.” Another described being removed from an LGBTQ support group after sharing her feelings about the Oct. 7 attacks. The facilitators had begun wearing keffiyehs and canceling sessions to encourage protest. “The art in the space changed,” the woman told Bar-Halpern. “Suddenly there were Hamas flags and ‘From the river to the sea’ slogans. She didn’t feel safe. She felt erased.”

Bar-Halpern eventually contacted the clinic director directly. “I told them: if you don’t want to follow evidence-based therapy, that’s your choice. But we all took an oath to do no harm. If a patient tells you, ‘You’re hurting me,’ and you ignore that — that’s not just unethical, it’s reportable.” The response she received? “They said, ‘I guess I can see how people might see it from two sides.’ But there are not two sides when a patient tells you, ‘I don’t feel safe.’”

Bar-Halpern, who is also the director of trauma services and training at Parents4Peace, and lecturer in psychology at Harvard Medical School, was aware that the article might be dismissed because it was written by Jewish clinicians. For that reason, she and Wolfman insisted on going through a rigorous peer-review process. 

“We really wanted that stamp of approval, because we knew that when people read it — seeing two Jewish trauma clinicians wrote it — they would invalidate it as they read it,” she said. “The invalidation of the invalidation,” she added. “And it actually did happen.” The article underwent nearly a year of revisions before publication.

For Bar-Halpern, the experience has been personally devastating. “My psychology community turned their back on us,” she said. “I was being told by colleagues that my reality was false. They’d say, ‘Your books in school were biased,’ or ‘You’re a colonizer.’ I’d say, ‘I grew up in Israel. This is my experience,’ and they’d still reject it. That it came from mental health professionals — that one broke me.”

So what can be done? Bar-Halpern says the first step is naming the experience. “When you can put a name to what you’re going through, you’re not left thinking, ‘Am I going crazy?’ Naming it is part of self-validation.”

She also encourages Jews who feel isolated to seek out supportive community — religious or otherwise. “I’m not religious, but I joined a temple because I needed community,” she said. “Find people who can help you feel normal in what you’re going through.” And she emphasizes self-care. “It sounds like a cliché, but after Oct. 7, I deliberately started doing yoga once a week — and it helped.”

She’s now leading a broader study with institutional review board approval, focused on Jewish students across U.S. college campuses. “They’re one of the most exposed populations,” she said. “Not just to protests, but to classroom environments and [diversity, equity and inclusion] offices that won’t even name the word ‘antisemitism.’ And when they speak up, they’re told they’re being ‘fragile’ or political. That’s invalidation.”

Despite the pressure, Bar-Halpern remains committed to the work. “I never planned to be an advocate,” she said. “But I’ve become one. The article already has more than 20,000 views — which, in academia, is considered viral. Apparently, I’m one of those accidental activists. Because when people are hurting and no one’s listening, you don’t really have a choice.”