Jess Ghannam - From Vienna to Palestine: Psychoanalytic Work in Gaza

Dr. Ghannam will discuss his work as a psychoanalyst in Gaza, developing community mental health clinics, teaching psychoanalytic theory, supervising trainees, and doing psychoanalytic case conferences there for over 25 years. He will discuss his experience of being a psychoanalyst in the midst of war, occupation, and settler-colonialism and what spaces analysts negotiate during periods of political, social, and economic destruction of marginalized communities, especially in Palestine. A perceived dilemma for all analytic communities centers around the questions of place, space, and role during the contemporary catastrophic destruction of communities -- do we as analysts have a role? What is that role? How do we negotiate that role? What spaces can we engage in? The most influential theorists in my work have been Freud, Lacan, and Fanon.

Dr. Jess Ghannam is a Palestinian psychoanalyst-psychologist and clinical professor of Psychiatry and Global Health Sciences at the University of California San Francisco. His research areas include evaluating the long-term health consequences of war on displaced communities and the psychological and psychiatric effects of armed conflict on children. Dr. Ghannam has developed community health clinics in the Middle East that focus on developing community-based treatment programs for families in crisis.

He is also a consultant with the Center for Constitutional Rights, Reprieve and other international NGO's that work with torture survivors. Locally he works to promote and enhance the health and wellness of refugee, displaced, and immigrant populations from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia and has established a community-based Mental Health Treatment Programs to support these communities. He has been working in Gaza for over 25 years developing community based mental health training programs and clinics. Most of these clinics have been destroyed since October 7th.