Dear Luise,
The last time we wrote to each other was at the beginning of this horrible war. Now, more than a year later, so many people I know are no longer with us, and still, it's hard to believe that you are gone.
At the beginning of this war, you wrote that you were speechless. A year has passed, and I feel my capacity to narrate what's happening, especially as a bibliotherapist, is collapsing. But you knew me too well; when everything collapses, I deeply believe we retain our capacity to play and heal the sorrow around us. So, in these times when we experience no control and so much guilt and helplessness, I look for other channels of consciousness to believe our world still contains some grace.
When I was little, in kindergarten, I insisted on wearing blue denim overalls. In 1980s Ashdod, where I grew up, I remember walking alone on the sidewalk from my parents' house to kindergarten. Every morning, I wore those overalls because they had a special pocket where I could keep a brown, smooth, round stone I'd found in one of my mother's drawers. I believed with all my heart that this stone protected me. Years later, I tried to understand what I needed protection from – a five-year-old girl, walking about sixty steps on the sidewalk in a neighbourhood of private houses until I reached my kindergarten. Still, every morning I clung to that stone in my denim overalls' pocket, believing wholeheartedly in its protection.
Later, I understood that Holocaust survivors lived in every house in my Ashdod neighbourhood. My father and our neighbours, the parents of my friends, were children during the Holocaust. The path to kindergarten passed through their life journeys: my father's journey, arriving in Israel alone at age five, and our neighbours’ gruelling experiences. The neighbour in the house on the right grew up as a Christian child, raised by a Righteous Among the Nations who saved her, and therefore continued wearing a cross around her neck all her life. The neighbour on the left survived as a child with his brother in Berlin's sewer system.
This understanding of human nature was intertwined in my childhood with evil, terror, survival, loss, and life that insists on continuing, creating, playing, and laughing. As a child, every morning anew, I insisted and argued with my mother to wear the denim overalls, to slip the smooth stone into the narrow pocket and feel safe. The belief in the stone instilled in me a feeling of protection and calm, allowing me to enter the kindergarten, approach the sandbox, immerse myself in play, "marry" one of the boys, continue playing family, build mud cakes, destroy them, and build them again.
Luise, at the beginning of our friendship at a conference in Prague, you told me about your work at the University. We shared our deep understanding of children's mental health and felt immediately connected. A year ago, at the beginning of the war, you wrote asking about my children and parents. We always spoke as mothers about our children. Now, while war and sorrow engulf the Middle East – Israel, Lebanon, and Gaza – I wonder how I can protect my children and other children. I feel that seeking creativity brings grace and compassion to the world. It is my way of maintaining my belief in my profession as a bibliotherapist and as a human being (Rottenberg, 2022).
So, I joined a project that my old friend, Tal Sterlin Halperin, initiated, called "The Comfort Object Project." If we had the chance to talk again, I would describe the goosebumps I got when Tal called me to join. I was sitting before a presentation for Reichman University, preparing a lesson for psychology students on the therapeutic and developmental significance of comfort objects and the capacity to play according to Winnicott (1971). I immediately told Tal I was with her.
You probably remember the lessons I taught students from Israel and Germany about the developmental and therapeutic importance of comfort objects. Every year, I ask students to take a few moments to write about an actual object from their childhood that was meaningful to them. Usually, they write about stuffed animals, dolls, and other meaningful toys. This simple, direct writing about childhood comfort objects always evokes memories passed down through generations, formulated through somatic memories of smiles, feelings of protection, and security. The students who come to study in Israel from all corners of the world share that among all the items they packed, they included at least one comfort object from their childhood for their dorm room: a teddy bear, a blanket, a doll, or another charm that instils a sense of home and security in their new place.
The name "Comfort Object" is inspired by the developmental and therapeutic significance of comfort objects, which hold a central place in psychoanalytic theory, particularly in Donald Winnicott's work (1971). He theorized that restoring mental capacity plays a crucial role in the journey from trauma to post-traumatic growth, with comfort objects serving as essential tools in this healing process.
Comfort objects occupy a unique therapeutic position by creating a bridge between inner and external reality. During periods of trauma and loss, these objects acquire profound emotional significance. They serve multiple functions: soothing the pain of loss and separation, facilitating the restoration of trust and security, and ultimately fostering the development of hope, belonging, warmth, and love.
On the morning of October 7th, life was abruptly interrupted, creating a deep fracture in the psyche of the Gaza envelope residents. Within hours, lives and familiar existence were violently cut off, resulting in inconceivable losses, painful cruelty, and a sense of abandonment. The familiar existence of community, family, security, and trust was violated by humans full of cruelty, hatred, and evil, and by the absence of help and assistance.
In the abyss of trauma lies an infinite burrow of severe fall, which grips us as our fingertips try to cling to what remains – pieces of routine, pieces of life, a familiar feeling, a sound of security, an everyday object, a stone. The fall into trauma's realms is an instant uprooting from a familiar state of being and consciousness into another state of threat, fear, helplessness, survival, and encounter with human evil. This grip on the familiar object helps create meaning and continuity within the fall; it distinguishes life before we fell and life we will have after the fall ends. Yet after experiencing one enormous and traumatic fall, forever, part of our soul and body will continue to fall. Therefore, we will always try to re-cling to comfort objects, create meaning in a familiar place, in love and security.
The knowledge we shared since we met taught us that according to psychoanalytic theory, in moments of falling into traumatic events, we return and regress to earlier developmental falls that occurred but were not emotionally experienced or formulated. Especially when everything shatters and creates a wordless break within us, we return to places where we were absolutely dependent on the environment, and the environment failed to provide the holding we needed (Kolker, 2009). Precisely because of this, the moment of falling into trauma also holds the possibility of healing and growth. Within the pain, sorrow, and loss, we can experience ourselves and an environment that cares, holds, and extends two supportive and creative hands that instil love and trust, allowing us to establish a sense of security and slowly believe in ourselves again.
In each person's developmental journey from "absolute dependence" as helpless infants to "independence" as adults, moments of developmental crises await us – moments of fear, separation from familiar and safe places, discovery of creating new and safe places within us and in the world around us. During this journey, we develop unique human abilities: the ability to play, the ability to be alone, and the ability to tell a story that gives subjective meaning to our lives while allowing us to realize our developmental potential and create deep emotional connections with ourselves and others.
Miraculously, what helps us in the developmental journey to post-traumatic growth is the restoration of our mental ability to play. The combination of "play" and "trauma" may sound strange, but if we think of play as "spontaneous creation bridging between inner reality and external reality", the pairing of trauma and play becomes part of the spectrum of human experience (Proni, 2002). According to psychoanalytic theory, comfort objects have tremendous importance in developing the ability to play. These seemingly concrete objects actually hold immense emotional meaning. The primary comfort object to which we become attached as infants – the blanket or doll – is charged with the smell, touch, body, and soul of our first caregivers, mom and dad. For example, to establish a comfort object for infants, it's recommended that parents place a diaper, doll, or blanket with them in bed so their scent will be imprinted on it. Then they can attach the comfort object to their infants, instilling security when the parents are not present. The comfort object soothes the pain of longing, separation, and difficulty, calming the crying and discomfort, allowing the infant to self-soothe for a few moments in an uncomfortable place until the parents return to restore comfort, satiety, and security. The comfort object holds in its presence a promise of continuity, belonging, warmth, and love.
My dear Luise, you left so early, before I had the chance to tell you so many things, to send you the photos I wanted, and to share with you the grace that the Comfort Object project brings even into a war zone. This project gives me hope and comfort in moments when it feels hard to protect ourselves from the violence humans can create. The project is an emotional, artistic initiative proposed as part of the healing process for survivors of the October 7th attack. The aim is to provide a space for simultaneously preserving and renewing memories from physical homes that were attacked and destroyed, creating an additional facet in these survivors' healing process through a holistic approach. A dresser, toy, table, armchair, tools, jewellery box, picture, stuffed toy, or any other meaningful object or piece of furniture is renewed. The item may change its purpose following renewal. Accompanied by the personal story and with help from the support team, the object is renewed or repaired, becoming an old-new item. The restoration process is artistically photographed with the trauma survivors as full partners. The owners receive their renewed objects back and, if they choose, can lend them to an exhibition to be presented to the public along with the photos and their stories.
The amazing five-woman team creates the project's meaning: first, as women who can contribute compassion and sensitivity while a war rages on, conducted mainly by men, our feminine approach brings the wish to bring back the hostages, stop the war and invest our energy in healing our wounds. The team includes Maya Gal, an artist and interior designer long engaged in furniture restoration; Shunit Flako-Zaritsky, photographer and creator; Michal Krasny, art and design exhibition curator; and Tal Sterlin Halperin, founder and project manager. My role covers the bibliotherapy and psychotherapy aspects of the healing process. Our female team allows the comfort objects to narrate their stories and families to recount their histories through them. The project aims to foster post-traumatic growth, with spiritual strength based on generosity and human compassion, allowing "the transformation of a terrorized space into a sacred space", as expressed by one family who approached the exhibition space with apprehension and excitement.
The comfort objects included in the project were chosen from those left behind in the destroyed, burned, and looted homes of the Gaza envelop communities. Together with the families, we gathered remnants of lives and memories from the ruins: tools, menorahs, clocks, pianos, photographs, benches, lamps, and armchairs. These items have absorbed countless feelings, experiences, testimonies, and entire life stories of families, some of whom are no longer living. The comfort objects help families narrate and process their ongoing relationships with their physical homes, with family members who shared in the trauma, and with those who are lost, reflecting the loss of community life. The objects stand as silent witnesses, mirroring the traumatic experience through the recognition of the trauma they have endured, symbolizing the trauma faced by the families. They simultaneously memorialize the lives lived before the massacre and the possibility of change, as the significance of each object evolves for the families. The opportunity to engage with the stories of pain and loss through these comfort objects creates the potential to transform a handful of ashes into gold.
My dear, your absence has turned into conversations with you in my mind. You thought me the power of women working together, and now, my dear Luise, it’s hard to believe it is a farewell letter. Writing transforms the pain into reality. This letter has become a comfort object helping me to cling to you a bit more, allowing me to hold onto the secure feeling you radiated while I write. This letter narrates our friendship that will always continue within me.
My dear, I will continue to speak with you in my mind. Thank you for your presence in my life. You opened so many doors to me, and I am sure that wherever you are, you are still taking care of others, with your good eyes and your big soul. Bringing your grace with you to every spot. See you again in our next lifetime. Take care, my dear.
Love, Biri
References
Proni, A. (2002). Play: A View from Psychoanalysis and Another Perspective. Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth Publishing.
Kolker, S. (2009). Introduction to the article "Fear of Breakdown." In O. Berman (Ed.), True Self, False Self (pp. 287-291). Tel Aviv: Am Oved.
Rottenberg, B. (2022). Bibliotherapy as an integrative psychotherapeutic channel. Journal of Poetry Therapy, 35(1), 27-41.
Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and reality. London: Routledge.
Author
Biri Rottenberg
birirot@bitte-keinen-spam-gmail.com
Dr. Biri Rottenberg is a bibliotherapy lecturer in the Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology at Reichman University, Israel, and maintains a private practice as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in Givatayim, specializing in work with infants, children, adolescents, and parents. A recipient of the APA Division 39 Early Career Professionals award, her expertise spans bibliotherapy, psychotherapy, children's literature, and studies in motherhood and gender. Her research has been published in the Journal of Poetry Therapy and Journal of Practice Innovations. Dr. Rottenberg completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the Hall Center for the Humanities, University of Kansas. She is currently a team member in the Comfort Object Project, an emotional and artistic initiative working with survivors of the October 7 attacks.
An example from the comfort object project: The story of Shlomo and Hanna Margalit
