Pozez JCC film screening explores impact of phototherapy in Israel
Yonatan Nir believes that humanity’s most pressing problem today is post-traumatic stress disorder. The solution to healing could lie through the lens of a camera, the documentary filmmaker said.
Based in a kibbutz in northern Israel, Nir has produced and directed a handful of films surrounding the topic of Israeli experiences of PTSD. He spoke about how he developed “docutherapy” and how he uses film to help people grow from traumatic experiences in a 2020 TED Talk.
Nir will deliver opening remarks before a screening of a documentary he created for Yom Hazikaron on April 20 at the Pozez Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia.
“It’s a film that was done specifically for the Israeli memorial day a couple of years ago,” Nir said.
“Alex’s Group” is a one-hour documentary that follows eight Israelis who participate in a year-long therapeutic photography group led by award-winning photographer Alex Levac. Nir observed and documented the group throughout 2021, which met monthly at a psychiatric facility in Israel.
Comprising a “mosaic of Israeli society,” the eight subjects share one similarity: they’ve all been affected in some way by PTSD, Nir said.
“All of them are either the soldiers themselves [who] were affected by it, or the mother of a post-traumatic soldier, a father to children who [have PTSD], a woman that is married to a post-traumatic person and a woman that was in the Israeli army,” Nir said. “It’s about PTSD as a social phenomenon and about post-traumatic growth.”
Two members of the eight are veteran soldiers, and the remaining six deal with secondary trauma — they are the family member or spouse of someone who has PTSD.
“There has been so many films about veteran soldiers with PTSD, and for me, it was interesting to show the effect that this phenomena has on other parts of society as well, because it is really, really important to understand it,” Nir said.
He added that people tend to think that someone dealing with trauma can go to a psychologist, treat it and that’s the end of the story. “But we forget that a trauma on one person is echoing to another person and echoing to another person,” Nir said.
He spoke to the ripple effect of poor mental health.
“If you are anxious and angry and depressed because of your PTSD, of course it will affect your girlfriend or your wife or your husband or your brother or sister or friend, and this is something we don’t really pay attention enough to,” Nir said.
The four men and four women gathered for “phototherapy treatment” with a psychiatrist and Levac. They took photos in between meetings, then brought in their work to share and discuss with the group.
One participant brought in a photo of his wedding, a sentimental day for him. Another captured herself next to her father who was dying of cancer. Others took completely different photos at the same location.
Nir said people learn more about themselves from the way they photograph the world around them.
“Taking a picture, it’s like deciding what you focus on and deciding what you pay attention to,” he said. “When you make the decision, you can really feel for a second that you gain control.”
That aspect is especially important for survivors of trauma, who he said often feel a lack of control due to the traumatic experience.
“When you hold the camera in your hand, you basically create a prisma between you and the so-called reality, and you take control over the reality in a way, because you decide how to frame or reframe it, where to focus, where to put the light and the shadow, how to compose the situation,” Nir said, explaining how phototherapy can help survivors cope with their trauma.
“The situation is the same situation, but the way that you see the situation and describe it to yourself by pointing the camera one way or the other is important; it’s what creates the memory. That is the basic [premise] of docutherapy and phototherapy: you become the creator of your own story by taking control of that one image.”
Another concept Nir explored in “Alex’s Group” is post-traumatic growth, the positive psychological change experienced as a result of struggling with challenging, stressful life circumstances.
“It’s a very important thing that not many people know — the fact that most of the people that experience traumas in their lives will grow from it,” Nir said.
This work is personal for Nir, who was injured as a reserve soldier during the 2006 Lebanon War.
“I experienced symptoms of PTSD myself, and I also experienced post-traumatic growth,” Nir said. “Today, I don’t feel any symptoms of PTSD. One of the reasons I got to this point is because I experienced so many hardships, but I had enough knowledge and friends and education to transform it into something positive, into something creative in my life, and that’s what I wish for many other people to do.”
Nir plans to share the story behind the film and reflect on trauma, community and post-traumatic growth at the April 20 event, in conversation with JSSA’s Rabbi Rachel Hersh.
He hopes to spread awareness of his online community DocuNation, a global initiative that seeks to bring people together through Israeli documentary films and live conversations with their creators.
Nir also wants the audience at the Pozez JCC to walk away having learned something new from “Alex’s Group.”
“I think they will learn a lot about Israeli society and the social impact that PTSD has on Israeli society,” Nir said. “And I also hope they will learn about post-traumatic growth and about the camera as one of the tools that can help with this post-traumatic growth.”
