By Sahar Al-Najjar
Chicago Campus, Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology student

As psychologists in training, we have an ethical and moral imperative to be of service and integrate our scholarship to assist those who are most vulnerable and marginalized. This value has always been the foundation of my own work and training, including as a Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology student at Adler University.

In early July, I put these values into practice when I embarked on a two-week humanitarian trip to Gaza, along with a team from Doctors Without Borders, an internationally recognized charity organization that provides humanitarian, medical, and psychological aid to those in conflict zones.

As part of an interdisciplinary group that included two nurses, two physicians, and one psychologist, we left O’Hare International Airport for Ben Gurion Airport in Israel. We stayed in Jerusalem for one day before driving for an hour and a half to Gaza via a Doctors Without Borders medical aide van.

I am thankful that Doctors Without Borders is able to collaborate with current scholars who are interested in directly volunteering to serve those impacted by the growing crisis in Gaza. According to the United Nations health ministry, the current death toll of civilians in Gaza has surpassed 40,000 people.

While I was there, I facilitated trauma-informed mental health support to women and children alongside Doctors Without Borders’ medical staff.

When I returned to Chicago on July 24, I was filled with meaningful experiences I’ve continued to reflect on.

The most memorable and impactful part of the trip was the children whom I met and worked with. I observed their commitment to life through their warmth toward those of us volunteering to aid them. We went as “experts” in our respective fields to provide support, but we were the ones who were learning from their deep resilience.

Sahar Al-Najjar facilitated trauma-informed mental health support to women and children alongside Doctors Without Borders’ medical staff.

Despite facing significant loss and displacement, the strength and spirit of the children of Gaza shined through. The Palestinian children I met demonstrated remarkable resilience in coping with their mental health through drawing, dancing, singing, and sharing their hopes for the future. Despite facing overwhelming challenges, many of them aspire to become teachers, doctors, and nurses — to support other children like them.

Meeting children who have lost everything — family, friends, homes, churches, mosques, and schools — was both heartbreaking and inspiring. Despite their profound losses, they still have the ability to dream of a future free from conflict and violence.

Sahar Al-Najjar and a team from Doctors Without Borders entered Gaza in July to provide humanitarian, medical, and psychological aid to women and children.

I was initially connected with Doctors Without Borders through the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship program with the Health & Medicine Policy Research Group, after hearing from two medical physicians at our monthly cohort meeting. They presented on their clinical work and affiliation with Doctors Without Borders. They told us they had a summer trip planned to Gaza to provide urgent and immediate humanitarian aid, including safe drinking water, sanitation, protection, education, shelter, and mental and physical health care. I was eager to support their efforts and registered for the trip.

Having the opportunity to give my time and scholarship toward a humanitarian cause is the most valuable aspect of being a scholar to me. As doctoral students, we commit to a lifetime of learning and un-learning throughout our careers. It is only when we step out of our comfort zone and integrate ourselves in others’ world and communities that we have the ability to grow and amplify this commitment to others.

Describing the unrelenting mental health impacts of war on children, I observed firsthand the symptoms congruent to depression that are related to loss — loss of one’s home, parents, schools, and safety. I attribute my understanding of the complexity of grief, loss, and trauma to the invaluable course Death, Dying, and Bereavement, taught by Janna Henning, J.D., Psy.D., at Adler. In my trip, I observed the alteration of individuals’ internal sense of self/subjectivity, where the sense of self begins to fade (known as diminished ipseity).

In my role during the humanitarian trip, I worked to provide psycho-educational practices of emotional regulation/nervous system techniques to counter feelings of disembodiment. While acknowledging lived experiences of ongoing grief and bereavement, I emphasized the importance of centering joy and planting seeds of empowerment throughout unprecedented loss and disenfranchised grief.

I reflected on my doctoral training where I learned that experiences of continual trauma often cause increased hypervigilance, which is something I noticed in several of the children I directly worked with. With these children, I created an art circle for them to draw and paint on while making meaning of the trauma-induced psychological symptoms that turned into physical symptoms.

During my work in Gaza, I also reflected on the importance of language, which I learned from a diversity course I took early on in the beginning of my doctoral training taught by my mentor and community comrade Geri Palmer, Ph.D. Dr. Palmer taught me how to integrate a liberation praxis through the very language we use as clinicians when working with acute trauma across diverse populations. Language inherently has the power to liberate or marginalize others. It has the power to humanize or dehumanize others.

It is the very tenants of liberation psychology that challenges oppression and advocates for the emancipation of all human beings. Language can also serve as a bridge: “Salam” in Arabic means peace, and “Tikkun Olam” in Hebrew means to repair the world.

As a clinical psychologist in training committed to a liberation praxis, I am passionate in striving to continue uplifting the psychological welfare of those most marginalized in society through humanitarian work and ongoing community dialogues that centralizes the power of collective unity over division. I encourage others to do the same across our individual and professional collectives.

Sahar Al-Najjar is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology program at Adler University and an adjunct professor of psychology at Triton College. She is currently a 2023-24 Albert Schweitzer Fellow and most recently was selected as a fellow for the 2024-25 Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois program. Her grandparents migrated to the U.S. from Palestine in the late 1960s and are also educators. She has dedicated much of her current work to serving immigrants and refugees locally in Chicago and internationally through her scholarship and community partnerships.