Abstract

Collective trauma disrupts individuals as well as the relationships and systems that provide safety, continuity, and meaning. This qualitative study examined processes of restoration among educational psychologists following the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel. Semistructured interviews were conducted with ten educational psychologists working across general Jewish, Arab, and Ultra-Orthodox contexts. Inductive thematic analysis was followed by interpretation through the Growing Approach, a systemic psychoeducational framework. Three interrelated domains emerged: restoration of the self, restoration of the other, and restoration of the system. Restoration involved reclaiming agency and professional identity, rebuilding relational continuity and reflective capacity, strengthening significant adults, and restoring systemic structures of holding, trust, and collective action. Although these processes were evident across contexts, their expression varied according to sociocultural conditions. The findings conceptualize restoration under ongoing collective trauma not as a return to a pre-crisis state, but as an ecological process of recreating conditions that enable agency, connection, reflection, and continued development across individual, relational, and systemic levels.

Keywords

collective trauma, educational psychology, restoration, growing approach, systemic intervention, relational holding