On Sukkot eve we were informed that Gilad Shalit will finally return home to Israel. We all hope that the tradition of leaving an empty chair at the Sukkah table for Shalit will become a thing of the past. Together with the good feeling of fulfilling the commandment of redeeming a captive -- in a society in which mutual concern for each other's well-being is engraved in its heritage -- many are worried about Shalit's health. The concerns are mainly about Shalit suffering from a number of mental health conditions that are known to anyone who has undergone a traumatic experience, which may hinder the individual's ability to return to a normal life. Experience has shown that when a person is faced with a life-threatening experience, especially if he has been incarcerated alone over a prolonged period of time, he will end up in a depressive state, at a level significantly deviating from the norm. Among those who have returned from captivity, some describe the development of disturbing thoughts about the circumstances of their captivity and the violence they experienced during interrogations. Signs of stress appear, accompanied by thoughts from then and there that penetrate and agitate the here and now. The thoughts are like dark daydreams or nightmares that make it hard for the person to fall asleep. That is the reason a freed prisoner support group calls itself Awake at Night. A significant factor that may help establish a feeling of safety for Shalit involves his relatives. His family and friends must refrain from giving him bear-hugs, which generally reflect a person's need to hug someone, more than the feeling that the person needs a hug. They will all need to try to provide some sort of response to Shalit's ordeal. It is important to learn about the private world in which Shalit lived in the past five years. Building a gradual rehabilitation process relating to his return home may enable him to deal better with the conditions he was forced to accept while in captivity. The pace at which he begins to change again also needs to be adapted to the pace he was exposed to during his captivity. A concise approach to the safe way he will begin to communicate with others now -- as opposed to the way he had to communicate as a prisoner -- would be to take it gradually, with patience, not to be quick to question him, to let him spend time with his family, friends, and members of his military unit, and, if necessary, obtain help from military professionals for his re-integration into his family, community, and even the military, as a soldier returning to his unit.
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As we attempt to assess what Shalit will need from his close environment, we must try, humbly, to walk in his shoes. The overriding principle is to focus on daily routines, and not on the threat that has ended. He needs to view his struggle with the troublesome reconstruction, and his disconnection from it, as part of his return to normalcy, and to avoid giving his illness a name. The primary aim is to foster a feeling of having a safe base, the opposite of what he felt during his captivity.
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Dr. Moti Mark served as the chief psychologist in the IDF and holds the rank of colonel.
