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35
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Introduction
Shani Pitcho, PhD, MSW, is a lecturer and the head of the integrative program for MA students at the Department of Social Work at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She conducts both qualitative and quantitative research, focusing on the areas of grief, loss, and trauma. Additionally, she actively engages in clinical practice, delivering therapeutic interventions to traumatized and grief-stricken populations.
Current institution
Publications
Publications (35)
This study investigates female-perpetrated violence through in-depth semi-structured interviews with nine Israeli women who had been physically and psychologically violent towards their male partners. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, two key themes emerged: “powerless victims” and “powerless perpetrators.” Participants described thei...
This qualitative study explored the mortality salience effect as it manifested in the dreams of Israelis in the aftermath of the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023, and during the ensuing war. Over a two-month period, a sample of 242 dreams was collected via an online survey. Two forms of thematic analysis, namely, inductive and deductive, were...
Considering the need to gain a deeper understanding of the protective factors associated with coping with food insecurity, specifically in times of severe prolonged stress, the current longitudinal study seeks to examine the role of optimism in the relationship between food insecurity and adverse mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic....
Self-isolation and quarantine are common and effective measures to contain the spread of COVID-19. However, it may have detrimental implications on young children’s adaptation and mental health. The present study explores the prevalence of home quarantines among young children in Israel and their associations with children’s maladaptive behaviors....
In April 2020, early in the COVID-19 outbreak, governments restricted public gatherings and ordered social distancing. These demands led to challenging adaptations, which in some cases resulted in mental health issues, including adjustment disorder. Guided by the transactional stress model, the current study aimed to examine the relations between p...
The loss of a family member is often conceptualized as a disruption in one's life story. However, when a loss occurs prior to, or during, one's birth, the bereaved life stories are not interrupted by the loss, but rather begin with loss. The paper offers a new conceptualization of these losses as "congenital losses" and captures the core aspects of...
The current qualitative study aimed to examine the narrative identities of women bereaved to intimate partner femicide. Eleven adult Israeli female offspring whose biological mothers were murdered by their biological fathers were interviewed for the purpose of this study. Due to the uniqueness of their loss experience and circumstances, participant...
The current study sheds light on the continuing bonds experience of adult Israeli daughters whose mothers were murdered by their fathers. Through 11 semi structured interviews, common externalized and internalized continuing bonds with the deceased mothers were closely examined. The interpreted results supported the existence of bonds, yet revealed...
Objective:
The current study examines the correlation between emotional stability and symptoms related to adjustment to the stresses related to the pandemic for parents and nonparents at the initial stage of the COVID-19 outbreak in Israel.
Background:
At the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak, governments prohibited public gatherings and dema...
In this collaborative autoethnographic piece, we present voices through critical incident technique replaying the same event at an academic conference, all seeking to understand how and why the disruption of voice occurs and what to do to counter it. We contextualize these experiences in the ideal of "sustainability of qualitative inquiry" through...
Based on the theoretical view of Terror Management Theory, the current research examines whether higher levels of death anxiety symptoms, in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak, increase the extent to which participants are exposed to information regarding the spread of the pandemic, as well as the fear of contagion and symptoms of hypochondriasis, w...
This qualitative study explored the intergenerational family narratives around loss and bereavement as perceived by 12 Israeli adults, whose fathers died before they were born. Using the interpretative phenomenological analysis approach, the intergenerational narrative process was examined as it appeared in in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Thr...
Intimate partner homicide is a major public health concern around the world and the most lethal outcome of domestic violence. Its impact on the surviving bereaved offspring is immense, yet there is a significant gap in the literature regarding the long-term effects of this type of loss. The current qualitative study is aimed at filling this gap. Th...
The rise in research publications over the last few decades about disenfranchised grief has deepened our understanding of this field. Importantly, it raises awareness and validates human experiences of bereavement, which are often socially ignored, muted, and stigmatized. However, while researchers in the field actively engage in the task of “enfra...
Extensive research has focused on social anxiety in various contexts of human relationships. However, only a small number of studies have aimed to understand social anxiety in the context of online dating. Therefore, the current study examined factors related to social anxiety among online daters and used Janoff-Bulman's Shattered Assumptions theor...
When grief over the death of a loved one becomes complicated, protracted and circular, ruminative counterfactual thinking in which the bereaved relentlessly but vainly seeks to somehow reverse the tragedy of the loss often plays a contributory role in sustaining the person’s suffering. In this article we summarize the growing evidence implicating t...
Fear of insects, mainly spiders, is considered one of the most common insect phobias. However, to date, no conducted studies have examined the effects of phobic stimulus exposure (spiders/ants) within the positive context of superhero movies, such as Spider-Man or Ant-Man. A convenience sample of 424 participants divided into four groups watched di...
The recent upsurge in the use of qualitative empirical studies, aiming to provide a deeper understanding of human reactions to loss, requires a methodological account of how to conduct better qualitative research with regard to data collection. This paper offers six general interview guidelines aimed at assisting researchers to achieve quality inte...
In line with the new conceptualization of adjustment disorder (AjD) in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD‐11), a new 20‐item self‐report questionnaire was developed and validated – the Adjustment Disorder–New Module (ADNM). However, such a long research tool has the potential to become problematic for use in epid...
This qualitative study examined the meanings constructed by Israeli adults to their loss of a father before birth. Using the interpretative phenomenological analysis approach, three themes of meaning were derived from in-depth semistructured interviews conducted with 12 Israeli adults who lost their fathers before they were born: (a) mother’s grief...
The current study aimed to explore Israelis’ state anxiety due to a Syrian-Israeli incident that occurred on February 10, 2018, when an Israeli F-16 fighter jet was shot down by Syrian air defense forces. In line with the “looming vulnerability” model which emphasizes the importance of the dynamic nature of psychologically threatening situations, t...
Following an ISIS attack, the present study examined the association between psychological distress and severe stress symptoms with vulnerability variables: i.e. Physical proximity to the site of the terror attack, Associative memory of prior events, Danger perception and ISIS anxiety. Using an online survey, 397 adult participants were recruited,...
This study, through the lens of Social Cognitive Theory, examined potential risk factors that may intensify election-related psychological distress. Six weeks after the 2016 U.S. election, 772 U.S. adult citizens filled out an online survey that assessed psychological distress along with sociodemographic characteristics, and a set of variables tapp...
ICD-11 has provided a revised definition for adjustment disorder (AjD). The current study examined whether mortality salience effect, a possible consequence of a terror attack, may serve as a significant predictor associated with each of the AjD subscales. Using an online survey, 379 adult participants were recruited and filled out self-reported qu...
This study examined whether participants with low somatization (no bodily
manifestations of anxiety) who are assumed to identify with- and be inspired- by the
Olympic-Games-spirit will present a stronger association between their Olympic
game viewing hours and their will-to-live, than persons with high somatization. One
hundred and thirty seven...
The minority of people who have experienced a traumatic event and were diagnosed as either suffering from PTSD or from Adjustment disorder, may suggest that victims of a traumatic event vary in risk factors for the disorders. The current research aimed at examining the association between reports of Adjustment disorder and PTSD symptoms (In accorda...
The current study examined whether emotional concern over one's security situation is connected with death anxiety during an ongoing terror wave, and whether type of exposure (media exposure vs. contact with witnesses) moderates this connection. 345 individuals, aged 18–70, were sampled during an ongoing wave of terror in Israel, and filled out sca...
The current wave of terrorism which is taking place in Israel is characterized by increased arbitrary attacks by individual terrorists, acting independently, with reduced ability to anticipate when and where the next attack will take place. This situation creates an atmosphere of fear and insecurity in the lives of many citizens. Accordingly, the c...
This study examined the association between self-report associative memories of prior traumatic events and psychological distress up to 48 hours after a terror attack. To date, the number of studies that examined this association is very small and most were conducted weeks or even months post event. For this purpose, we examined the association bet...
