Published by the Jerusalem Post on 7/29/25 Antisemitism is becoming increasingly more prevalent within therapy and therapeutic spaces. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law recently wrote about antisemitic incidents within the mental health sphere, including a Washington, DC-based therapist who refused to see a Jewish patient who had recently moved to the US from Israel. Antisemitism is at a record high. We’re keeping our eyes on it >> Additionally, a psychologist was doxxed and harassed online because she is a Jewish Zionist; and a major mental health organization denied a Jewish affinity group because its members were “privileged white supremacists.” This is especially prevalent in therapeutic spaces that focus on “decolonization” within which it is common to present Zionism as a colonial construct. An example of this is the Decolonizing Therapy movement founded by Dr Jennifer Mullen. Mullen’s doctrine is that therapy is white, euro-centric, colonial, capitalist, and built to oppress people of color and indigenous populations. She encourages people to embrace their ancestral rage and dismantle colonialism, and considers mainstream psychology and psychiatry to be forms of violent punishment. She dismisses the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) calling it the “dumb shit manual,” and sees mental illness as something that should not be pathologized and instead treated through ancestral practices. While no formal peer-reviewed journals or universities have endorsed her movement, it’s not as fringe as it may seem. A simple web search of the words “Decolonizing Therapy” will land thousands of results from therapists discussing how they are decolonizing their therapy, and retreats such as “decolonizing mental health training” at the Mental Health Academy. There is even an article about it in the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Zionism cause of mental illness However, groups such as the Brandeis Center and Physicians Against Antisemitism highlight the fact that Decolonizing Therapy identifies Zionism as a root cause of mental illness. Tens of posts on Decolonizing Therapy’s social media uphold this idea. One post reads “mental health liberation is Palestinian liberation,” another says “your mental health is directly impacted by the genocide in Palestine.” One shows a masked figure in a keffiyeh with the words “colonialism is the root wound of our psychological diseases.” In a mind map diagram of a “colonized mind,” Zionism is placed next to “rape culture” and “genocidal tendencies” as one of the attributes. Just three days after the October 7 massacre, on October 10, Mullen posted to the account that a “free Palestine includes resistance,” and “We can hold space for the grief of our Jewish peeps and stand against all settler colonialism.” She went on to add “if this is too uncomfortable for mental health paradigms then clearly we need a new way.” Following the release of hostage Omer Shem Tov from Hamas captivity, she posted: “The story of the century is why so many Israeli hostages show these public gestures of tenderness and gratitude to Hamas on their release. These stories frustrate empire because they show the radical possibilities of building a world of care.” “Freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov kissed the heads of not one but two Hamas operatives. When someone repeats a gesture twice, they mean it.” Decolonizing Therapy has also posted about Zionism as economic control. Physicians Against Antisemitism condemned a separate post by Decolonizing Therapy that read, “If the war doesn’t kill [the Palestinians] then suicide may become the only hope these most at-risk people to escape the hell of existence.” While Decolonizing Therapy talks extensively about indigenous people and intergenerational trauma, Jews are not part of this discussion. “The underbelly of capitalism is the global coordinated effort to erase Indigenous peoples of the world. Whether that be folks in Turtle Island aka the States, people in Palestine, and even people in Congo,” she posted. “If Zionism is being treated as a mental disorder, how can Jews expect fair treatment?” wrote Kenneth Marcus, founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Center in an op-ed in USA Today last week. “By promoting false ethnic stereotypes founded on a binary worldview that casts Jews as oppressors, Decolonizing Therapy misrepresents Jewish identity and history. This ignorance creates hostile environments for Jewish patients and therapists, alienating them, perpetuating harmful stereotypes and ultimately compromising the integrity of mental health care.” Phoenix therapist Halina Brooke told Aish, “Today’s slogan of ‘decolonize therapy’ is a shorthand for ‘cut the Jews out.’” Antisemitism in therapeutic spaces The Jerusalem Post found many posts on various social media platforms by therapists discussing their challenge of treating “Zionist clients” and on the flipside, Jewish Zionist patients feeling the need to change therapists due to the way they were being treated. One psychotherapist posted on social media asking for advice on “holding space for a zionist client [sic].” “I have been working with a client for years. Since October, I’ve started to hear more about the client’s zionist beliefs. They went on a rant about how anti-zionism is antisemitism, propaganda is fact, and etc. [sic]” The poster later edited to say “Free Palestine. I’m going to reassess if I can continue to provide ethical therapeutic services to the client as it does feel really heavy in the space even though I’m trying to keep the space focused on their goals.” Another therapist responded that they “had a client like this” and “ended up referring them [on] as I couldn’t be unbiased in their treatment.” One Jewish psychologist wrote that there was an “outpouring of antisemitic responses” in a Facebook group she was part of and that “no one – among nearly 1,300 mental health professionals – spoke up.” Two Dallas therapists – Jackie Junger and Jacqueline Katz – filed suit against their former Dallas employer for discrimination and retaliation, claiming they were fired for speaking out against antisemitism. And in Chicago, a member of a therapist group created a blacklist of “therapists/practices with Zionist affiliations that we should avoid referring clients to.” This was reported by Manya Treece in an op-ed in an Israeli paper in 2024. She added that other members added names of other Jewish therapists to the list, without any of them ever having mentioned their views on Zionism. There are also many examples of Jewish patients experiencing antisemitism from therapists. Shortly after the Hamas massacre, one social media user posted that a therapist that they had been seeing for many years “denied the massacre” to their face, despite knowing that the patient had friends who were killed. “I ended up having to shut off the Zoom call early and literally went sobbing to my sister,” the poster added. Another person wrote that they had to end the relationship with their therapist of five years because of the therapist’s refusal to acknowledge Israel. “Every time I referred to Israel she would then refer to it back to me as Palestine. For example, I’d say “I’m worried about my family in Israel.” She’d say back to me “I understand you’re worried about your family in Palestine,” the user wrote. Many Jews went on to comment that they are now searching for a Jewish Zionist therapist specifically. The organization The Jewish Therapist Collective (JTC) has a database of over 8,000 Jewish clinicians across the world which potential patients are able to filter, based on branch and level of Judaism, Jewish background (Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Sephardi, etc.), and of course, areas of specialty. JTC is now the largest international non-denominational advocacy focused Jewish therapist group in the world. The head of JTC, Halina Brooke, told the Therapy Reimagined podcast that Jewish clients flooded the email of JTC after October 7 because they felt let down by available professional bodies. “We had this huge schism, and there were hundreds of clients who were all of a sudden bereft of a safe space in the clinical setting.” “Our profession failed, and we need to pick it up.”