Rachel Lev-Wiesel

University of Haifa | haifa · The Graduate School of Creative Arts Therapies & The Emili Sagol Research Center

The study explored revenge fantasies as a response to perceived injustices among Indian Hindu women amid the prevalent gender-based violence. A mixed-method design with 52 women (18–56 years) was used to collect their drawings and narratives depicting revenge fantasies, demographics, the Traumatic Events Questionnaire, and the Injustice Experiences...

Moving from one’s home country to a foreign country due to unforeseen circumstances such as war and unrest is a distressing life event. For minors, such an experience can impact their perception of the past and present alongside future goals and desires. With this background, a pilot study was done to assess the life transition reflected in the Bri...

Background/Objectives: The current study compared Self-Figure drawings from Thai and Indian adolescents to assess the cross-cultural applicability of a child abuse assessment tool. The research aims to understand the extent to which distinctions or similarities arise in Self-Figure drawings among adolescents from two culturally similar yet distinct...

Studies on the ways in which women implement coping strategies to recover from intimate partner violence have primarily focused on Western, non-collectivistic societies. To contribute to the scant literature on coping strategies among women in traditional-collectivistic societies, the current study applied the principles of Clinical Ethnographic Na...

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic pain syndrome characterized by disruptions in pain processing within the central nervous system. It exhibits a high prevalence among patients with a history of traumatic experiences, notably childhood sexual abuse (CSA). This study compared the efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) to the current phar...

Background: Adolescent obesity has markedly increased worldwide, and metabolic bariatric surgery is an effective treatment option. A major predictor of the outcomes of this procedure is adherence to post-surgery lifestyle changes and medical recommendations. While adolescents generally have more difficulty adhering to medical advice than adults, th...

Childhood sexual abuse is a significant risk factor for adverse psychological outcomes such as eating disorders, as well as suicidal attempts and ideation. Detecting these phenomena at an early stage is crucial for improving prognosis. The current study investigated indicators of childhood sexual abuse, eating disorders, and suicidal tendencies as...

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects up to 30% of veterans returning from the combat zone. Unfortunately, a substantial proportion of them do not remit with the current available treatments and thus continue to experience long-term social, behavioral, and occupational dysfunction. Accumulating data implies that the long-standing unremittin...

Poverty increases vulnerability towards somatisation and influences the sense of mastery and well-being. The present study on adolescents living in relative poverty in a high-income group country (Israel) and a low-middle-income group country (India) explored the nature of somatisation tendency (ST) and its relationship with potency and perception...

The current study attempted to find out how the Bystander’s role and response are reflected in the drawings and narratives of social workers. The sample consisted of 32 social workers aged 25 to 55 who were asked to draw two drawings: “draw a work mistreatment you witnessed at work” and “draw your reaction to that event” narrative to each drawing w...

Dissociation in child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors remains under-recognized and diagnosed, partly because of the difficulties involved in identifying dissociative symptoms. Qualitative research can contribute to a better understanding of the lived experiences of dissociation. This study focused on the experiences of dissociation in the context of C...

The paper examined how dissociation is experienced and manifested in the drawings and narratives of female survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. Fifteen Israeli women filled out a self-report questionnaire consisting of demographics, traumatic events, and dissociation severity. Then, they were aske...

Whereas the desire for revenge for an unjust deed is considered natural, its use within the therapeutic setting is scarce, specifically in sexually victimized children. The study aimed to find how experiencing sexual molestation during childhood and the revenge fantasy is reflected in drawings and narratives of sexually victimized children. Followi...

Child sexual abuse is a prevalent phenomenon worldwide. However, a gap exists between its incidence and its disclosure rate. Furthermore, assessment tools and techniques capable to identify the source of symptoms are lacking. This study investigates the extent to which the validated Medical Somatic Dissociation Questionnaire (MSDQ) can differentiat...

The present mixed-methods study aims to understand the extent to which emotional, physical and sexual abuse is reflected in the Self-Figure drawings of Indian street children by identifying pictorial indicators unique to each form of abuse. Following ethical approval and informed consent, 357 children across different states residing in shelter hom...

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and the dependency on dialysis is an abrupt life-changing event that harms a patient’s life (e.g., social relationships, work, and well-being). This study aimed to examine how individuals who undergo chronic dialysis due to failure end-stage renal disease perceive their bodies, as reflected in drawings and narratives. F...

Child abuse is a worldwide phenomenon with adverse short- and long-term mental and physical negative consequences, with a huge gap between the prevalence of child abuse and disclosure rates. The study aimed to examine and validate the self-figure drawing as an assessment tool to differentiate between three forms of child abuse, i.e., child sexual a...

Emotion recognition is an important developmental achievement in early childhood. Grounded in theoretical concepts of family systems theory and the spillover effect, the goal of the current study was to examine whether prenatal spousal support predicts toddler emotion recognition at 24 months, and whether this association is mediated by parental em...

The significant gap between the prevalence of child sexual abuse and disclosure underscores the need for new, innovative, and creative screening tools to identify victims to end the abuse and provide these victims with appropriate treatment. This article presents the cumulative efforts of a series of innovative studies dealing with sexually abused...

Objectives: Quarantine lockdown enforced for a long duration of time during the Corona pandemic added strain upon families; the educational system has been closed, children were forced to remain at home, and many parents lost their jobs. The aim of the study was to find out the impact of lockdown periods on middle-class parent-child relationship in...

Social peer rejection (SPR) or social exclusion is a prevalent phenomenon. Based on evidence that drawings may reveal unspoken difficulties, the current pilot study attempted to determine the extent to which the drawings and narratives express the child's actual experience of SPR. The final convenient sample consisted of 21 children and youth betwe...

This article constructs a comprehensive theoretical model that outlines bystanders’ emotional and behavioral responses to the mistreatment of adolescent peers. The model captures bystanders’ risk and health risk behaviors, which have been overlooked in the context of their reactions; when addressed at all in connection with bystanders of bullying a...

Victimized children’s perceptions of the severity of abusive incidents have been found to be associated with their willingness to disclose. However, the relationship between perceptions, disclosure, and coping processes of abused Indian adolescents, has rarely been studied. To explore the roles of emotional reactions associated with disclosure, and...

Boarding schools are the common ‘out-of-home’ placements for adolescents, due to various historical, religiously orthodox, and traditional reasons and due to dysfunction within families. The purpose of the current study is to examine the relationship between a free versus an enforced decision to enroll in a boarding school in terms of personal well...

Child abuse is an underreported phenomenon despite its high global prevalence. This study investigated how child abuse is perceived by children and adolescents as manifested in their drawings and narratives, based on the well-established notion that drawings serve as a window into children’s mental states. A sample of 97 Israeli children and adoles...

Based on the lack of validated assessment tools to detect past physical or sexual abuse, the current study examines to what extent the experience of either sexual or physical abuse is reflected in self-figure drawings of adolescents at-risk. A convenience sample consists of 93 adolescents at risk between the ages of 12–17 recruited from Welfare ins...

Violence against children is a prevalent worldwide phenomenon. Based on evidence that drawings may reveal unconscious conflicts and difficulties, the current study examined violence as reflected in children's drawings and narratives. Specifically, the study attempted to determine the extent to which the drawings and narratives express the child's p...

This study reports the four stages in the development of a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) system designed to detect abuse in self-figure drawings: (1) A preliminary study to build a Gender CNN; (2) Expert-level performance evaluation, (3) validation of the CSA CNN, (4) testing of the CSA CNN model. The findings indicate that the Gender CNN achi...

The study aims to present the unique case of national grief following the death of the Thai King who is perceived as the father of the nation. Twenty faculty members and students at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, reflected on their feelings and future concerns through narratives and drawings. Phenomenological analysis yielded that the national...

Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS) is a personality trait that is characterized by a strong emotional response (Aron & Aron, 1997). The predominant SPS approaches focus on the potential of the environment to affect high-SPS individuals to develop a stronger response to either positive or negative stimuli. Two studies were aimed to explore how the...

Experiences of humiliation, unjust hurt caused by another or anger naturally, elicit the desire to seek revenge and fantasies of revenge. The current study examined the associations between a history of traumatic events and feelings of injustice and levels of desire for revenge-seeking and fantasies of revenge. Specifically, it tested whether feeli...

Trauma is manifested through the body in different ways, from arousal to freezing, or cessation of movement. Verbal expressions of traumatic experience have long been studied; however, studies of nonverbal responses are scarce. The current paper presents the Movement Assessment and Treatment Manual for Trauma (MAMT). The suggested intervention is b...

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a worldwide phenomenon with negative outcomes for survivors whose lives and well-being are compromised into adulthood, due to the trauma caused by the abuse. As trauma survivors often report time and space disorientation as well as memory deficit, an attempt was made to further understand these functions in female adults...

This study aimed to investigate to what extent the self-figure drawings of young adult Thais differ from the self-figure drawings of a matched Israeli group. The convenience sample consisted of 24 participants; 12 Israelis and 12 Thais were asked to draw themselves with a pencil on a sheet of A4 paper and add a narrative to the drawing. In addition...

Somatic dissociation is known to be associated with childhood abuse, particularly with childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Currently, the diagnosis of CSA is hampered by the lack of a validated questionnaire. While some questionnaires are excellent research tools, there is no suitable applied measure for the assessment of distress due to CSA. The current...

Child maltreatment is under-reported despite its high prevalence. It ranges from one-third to one-half lifetime exposure to violence. This points out to the issue of laypersons’ perceptions of what is child maltreatment and at what severity should it be reported. The current study sought to examine children and youth versus parents’ perceptions of...

Over the last decades, a growing body of research has deepened the understanding of the complexity of traumatic events and their consequences. While verbal expressions of traumatic experience have long been studied, studies of nonverbal responses are scarce. The present study explored bodily movements while people recount traumatic memories. The co...

Objective: Children and adolescents who are referred to residential care facilities (RCFs) have a history of neglect, abuse, or other familial or environmental deficiencies, all of which may contribute to a higher risk of sleep problems. The purpose of this study was to explore sleep patterns of young adolescents living in RCFs and to examine whet...

The purpose of this article is to provide an insider's view and analysis of the way Israeli healthcare professionals give meaning to their work in cases related to child abuse and how they experience and cope with the inherent uncertainty of these complex situations. Conducted from a social constructivist perspective, this qualitative analysis is b...

The study explores thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of victims about their experiences of abuse and neglect and how therapeutic intervention encourages disclosure. Narrative accounts given by 15 Indian adolescents during therapeutic interventions were analyzed by the Descriptive-Phenomenological-Psychological Perspective, which evoked three themes....

Sexual abuse is a common worldwide phenomenon, with severe physical and mental consequences. Yet its detection remains challenging due to a variety of factors. Sexual abuse detection through drawing shows promising results for the detection of sexual abuse. This study aims to evaluate the contribution to practice of a sexual abuse detection through...

Israeli society is currently under threat from a nuclear attack from Iran. Based on Jewish history, this threat is likely to be associated with similar threats, such as the Holocaust. The purpose of this study was to examine the reactions of Holocaust survivors to the nuclear Iranian threat and assess if and to what extent they differ from non-Holo...

Background: Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), a condition considered to represent a prototype of central sensitization syndrome, can be induced by different triggers including childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Recent studies have demonstrated hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) can induce neuroplasticity and improve clinical outcome of FMS. The aim of the curr...

Due to evidence that traumatic experience impacts the brain, the body (concerning sensory sensitivity), and the mind, a recent study that attempted to answer the question of whether the effects of CSA can be reversed by using a multidisciplinary approach consisting of dual treatments: hyperbaric & psychotherapy, was conducted. Its results showed th...

The Peri-Traumatic Dissociative Traumatic Drawing Assessment (PDTDA) is an art-based assessment technique developed to evaluate peri-traumatic dissociation subsequent to traumatic events, based on the trauma resolution and time perception literature. To validate the PDTDA, associations between six drawing feature scales; namely, the participants’ p...

The current study examined the psychological experience of Palestinians who daily cross an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) checkpoint to reach their schools or places of employment. The study employed an interpretative phenomenological analysis of semi-structured interviews and drawings to capture a depth insight regarding the psychological meaning of...

The current study is based on data collected from Jewish and Arab 6th, 8th and 10th grade students (age range 12-17) within the Israeli national school system (N = 12,035). Data collection for the study utilized two complementary instruments: the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ). Study results...

Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) is a condition considered to represent a prototype of central sensitization syndrome, characterized by chronic widespread pain and along with symptoms of fatigue, non-restorative sleep and cognitive difficulties. FMS can be induced by trauma, infection or emotional stress with cumulative evidence that dissociation is rel...

The aim of the study was to examine the role of gender in willingness to disclose childhood sexual abuse (CSA) compared to other forms of abuse (physical, emotional and neglect) in young adolescents. Willingness was examined through two terms: reluctance- the level of unwillingness or disinclination to disclose, and urge-the need to share in order...

The aim of the paper is to assess academic experiential learning in relation to academic lectures' perceived personal and professional growth. Sixteen PhD students (age ranged between 23 and 46, 10 male, 6 females) participated in an introduction to expressive art therapy. Qualitative methods according to phenomenological methodology was used. At t...

Background: We investigated the correlation between eating-related pathology and the Superwoman ideal among ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) and National-Religious women in Israel using self-figure drawings and related narratives. Method: A sample of 55 women filled out self-report eating attitudes questionnaire (EAT-26), the Superwoman Ideal questionnai...

Edutainment is a communication strategy to influence attitudes and behaviors through the use of the media. Through the children's play " Yael Learns to Take Care of Her Body, " designed for joint viewing by children aged 5–8 and their parents, sexual abuse is raised. This qualitative study findings indicate that parents from low socioeconomic subgr...

This article examines the adult perceptions of women survivors of intrafamilial child sexual abuse and their current relationship with the family member who abused them in their childhood. Twenty Jewish Israeli women were interviewed in depth between 2008 and 2009. Interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data analysis produced 2 int...

Child maltreatment is a major public health issue in Israel. According to a recent Israeli national epidemiological survey, approximately half of Jewish and Arab girls and boys between the ages 12 and 17 experienced at least one type of child maltreatment, at any severity level. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of m...

The current study aims to explore, through the eyes of adult former clients, the experience of being in expressive arts group therapy (EAGT) as a child. By focusing on the memories of adults, the study allowed the exploration of former clients’ understanding of what the therapy was about and its effects on their lives. Semi-structured open-ended in...

The complexity of children’s entrance into mental health treatment has been the growing focus of much recent research. However, little attention has been given to the exploration of this phenomenon from the clients’ point of view. This study aimed to gain understanding of the experience of entering therapy as a child through examination of the reco...

Previous studies indicate that childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has negative physical and psychological long-term effects and that childbirth may retraumatize women who were sexually abused in childhood due to the women’s association of the delivery with their earlier maltreatment. Childbirth might also include traumatic elements such as threat or perc...

This qualitative study examined the subjective experience of children undergoing an invasive examination in the hospital when accompanied by a medical clown. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine such children and nine of their accompanying parents. The children were patients in two outpatient departments (Pediatric Gastroent...

Child abuse is a complex social problem that cannot be understood from a single disciplinary perspective. Successful intervention requires involvement of various professional groups. While such cooperation has many potential advantages, in practice, it presents challenges to effective intervention. The present study examines the lived experience of...

The uniqueness of Israel's history and the characteristics of its society have influenced the development of the art therapy profession. The need to acknowledge, assist, and treat different populations, which include those who came from different cultural backgrounds, Holocaust survivors, and combat veterans and their families, led art therapists t...

The qualitative research presented here is part of a larger project on the significance of medical clowning during invasive examinations in children in the Department of Gastroenterology and the Center for the Sexually Abused in a hospital in Israel. It investigated what makes up the essence of medical clowning, what skills and techniques are used...

the present quantitative longitudinal study focuses on the inter-relationships between sexual abuse, distressed female sexual function and childbirth. Additional variables studied include depression, mode of delivery, subjective birth experience and traumatic life events other than sexual abuse. data collection for the study was extended across thr...

The purpose of this article is to utilize an insider’s perspective to describe and analyze the experience of abuse and neglect of adolescent girls in Israel. A purposive sample of 20 adolescent, “at risk” girls was interviewed and chosen due to intensive experiences of abuse throughout their lives. Findings highlighted how these individuals negotia...

"Channeling" is a phenomenon in which people describe themselves as receiving messages from another personality or dimension of reality. Channeling is often regarded as dissociation, which is a disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception. This study explored the interface between channeling and d...

Previous studies indicate that childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has negative physical and psychological long-term effects and that childbirth may retraumatize women who were sexually abused in childhood due to the women’s association of the delivery with their earlier maltreatment. Childbirth might also include traumatic elements such as threat or perc...

Post traumatic patients experience a wide range of symptoms, some of them existential in nature which we term "dissociative being." Many varied psychotherapeutic approaches are available for the treatment of post traumatic patients. Nevertheless, in view of this disorder's complexity, therapists face shortcomings when employing each of these therap...

Based on 40 in-depth qualitative interviews with professionals, including law-enforcement personnel, educators, and mental health and health-care professionals, this chapter presents a study that describes and analyzes an insider’s view of the ways in which child abuse professionals perceive and understand the disclosure of violence. We found that...

Introduction The purpose of the research was: (1) to compare fears of intimacy between people with post-traumatic stress symptoms and healthy controls; (2) to examine the relationships between sensory processing patterns and fears of intimacy among people with post-traumatic stress symptoms; (3) to examine the ability of post-traumatic stress sympt...

The paper proposes a conceptualization of the experience of fatherdaughter childhood sexual abuse through five traumagenic constructs to further understand the outcomes of it. The uniqueness’s of childhood sexual abuse compared to other forms of child abuse, in terms of symptoms and treatment principles, is described.Findings: The 5-citraumagenic c...

The purpose of the present article is to examine the multiple ways in which the private lives of professionals are affected by involvement with child abuse intervention and prevention. Using a descriptive-phenomenological perspective and 40 in-depth interviews with professionals to present a model based on qualitative data, we studied the ways in w...

Purpose: The aim of the current study is to examine the association between self disclosure and self-injurious behaviors among adolescent patients diagnosed with an eating disorder. Methods: Sixty three female patients who fulfilled the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria of eating disorders were included (i.e. anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder an...

Abstract The study aimed to examine the role of dissociation (persisting vs. peritraumatic) in self-injurious behavior (SIB) among at-risk Israeli female adolescents. In addition, the relationship between childhood sexual abuse (CSA), depression, dissociation, and potency was investigated. A convenience sample of 93 female adolescents aged 12 years...

We present a model of the structure and dynamics of the development of resilience among maltreated children. We created the model from a qualitative analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 40 Israeli victims of child abuse and neglect. Findings indicate that children develop resilience by using their cognitive pr...

This study aimed to explore the relationship between traumatic history, dissociative phenomena, absorption and quality of life among a population of channelers, in comparison with a population of non-channelers with similar traumatic history. The study sample included 150 women. The measures included Traumatic Experiences Scale, Dissociative Experi...

Disclosure of child abuse may enable initiating interventions to end maltreatment and mediate its negative physical and psychological consequences. The present study reviews the field of disclosure and examines factors affecting disclosure among a service population of abused children who were placed in residential care due to various forms of abus...

The aim of the study was to examine to what extent breast augmentation contributes to body-image satisfaction and quality of life in women who had undergone breast augmentation. After signing a consent form to participate in the study, a convenience sample of 48 women before (n = 20) and after breast augmentation for cosmetic reasons (n = 28) were...

The current study is the first to examine the experience of Holocaust Child Survivors (HCSs) sharing their survival stories by performing with youths on one stage as part of the "Testimony Theater" project. Using qualitative data analysis, the findings indicate that the Holocaust experience is an essential element in forming the identity of HCSs. A...

The study examined the impact of the circumstances of childhood sexual abuse on post-traumatic stress symptoms and depression among female adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The sample consisted of 225 Israeli women divided into two groups according to the identity of the perpetrator (nonfamily perpetrator versus a family member perpetrator...

Thirty participants with post-traumatic stress (PTS) symptoms and 30 healthy controls completed the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Scale (PSS-SR) and the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile (AASP). Participants with PTS symptoms vacillated between sensory sensitivity, sensation avoiding, and low registration. Sensation avoiding and low registr...