Understanding the tribe: Safeheart org. helps Nova survivors recover using psychedelic treatment

For thousands of people attending the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, the joy of dancing at sunrise on Oct. 7 gave way to terror as Hamas rocket barrages streaked across the sky.

As festivalgoers tried to escape, gunmen attacked them along surrounding roads and at the festival site, killing hundreds.

For many, the trauma was compounded by being under the influence of mind-altering substances, leaving them uniquely vulnerable and in desperate need of specialized, trauma- and psychedelics-informed support.

In response to this crisis, a group of eight mental health professionals immediately came together.

Within hours, the eight – Guy Simon, Yair Grynbaum, Igal Tartakovsky, Tal Zagursky, Nir Tadmor, Karina Dessau, Prof. Roy Salomon, and Reut Plonsker – mobilized to help the survivors. By October 18, they had officially formed a nonprofit organization known as SafeHeart to provide specialized trauma care to survivors of the Oct. 7 music festival attacks.

Today, SafeHeart provides trauma treatment, counseling, support groups, crisis intervention, and long-term mental health care, free of charge, to survivors and their families.

Its team of 400 therapists has treated over 2,500 patients since Oct. 7.

The organization’s founders combine extensive experience in therapy, trauma care, and psychedelic harm reduction with close ties to the festival community.

Before the Oct. 7 attack, members were already working together to strengthen harm reduction in Israel through parliamentary advocacy and collaboration with leading organizations, including Safe-Zone, Hof Mivtachim, Impulse, and the University of Haifa.

Recently, the Magazine met with the SafeHeart founders in a wide-ranging interview to discuss its origins, the unique needs of the Nova survivors, how their psychological needs have changed since the first weeks after Oct. 7, and the difficulties they still face nearly three years later.

That terrible day three years ago

Dessau, a psychotherapist, leader of safe spaces, water-based emotional therapist, and one of SafeHeart’s founders, recalls the day’s events.

“I was at the sea that day and only understood what was happening at around 11:30 that morning. When I heard about the Nova festival, I messaged Nir [Tadmor] and Igal [Tartakovsky]. We were connected through Hof Mivtachim [Safe Harbor, an Israeli project specializing in psychedelic harm reduction and emotional crisis support], and I felt that we had to do something. We could not simply stay at home and absorb what had happened.

“They [the Nova survivors] were at the party at sunrise, at a moment of celebration and openness. Not everyone had taken drugs, but everyone had come to celebrate. That is a sensitive and exposed state in which to encounter such terror.”

SafeHeart co-founder Guy Simon, a clinical social worker and psychotherapist specializing in trauma and extreme states and co-founder of the Impulse Center for Integrative Therapy, shares, “My strongest memory from that period is sitting with my phone, which was already overheating in my hands. Hundreds of people were messaging me throughout the day, asking for help or to be connected with a therapist. My phone would crash and shut down. I would turn it back on, another flood of messages would pour in, and it would shut down again.

“I was overwhelmed by requests, harrowing personal stories, and so many pleas for help of one kind or another.

“Establishing the organization and creating a framework for care was exactly what we needed to do to respond to that endless stream of requests.”

As the scale of the attack became clear, the group began organizing support for survivors.

“When we began to understand what had happened at the festival,” explains Plonsker, a licensed clinical psychologist and SafeHeart’s vice president of clinical services, “we opened a WhatsApp group for therapists. It quickly became clear that many survivors would need help, and that understanding the context of their experience would be essential.

“We gathered colleagues with that knowledge and opened a shared Google document where people could leave their names and telephone numbers.

“Initially, we asked therapists to offer three sessions voluntarily. We acted because people needed us; we developed and improved the framework as we went.”

Tartakovsky, a mindfulness-based psychotherapist and co-founder of the Hof Mivtachim project, explains that the group had been providing support and psychological first aid at festivals, including earlier Nova events.

“We knew this community and understood the experiences people could have with psychedelics. Even before we understood the full scale of the attack, we recognized that some survivors would need therapists able to work with that part of their experience.”

Nova survivors’ singular trauma

Plonsker describes the unique trauma that the Nova survivors experienced.

“The attack happened in an open area. People had come to dance and celebrate; some were without their phones or shoes when they had to run. They described feeling hunted. This was very different from being inside a protected room at home.”

Approximately 70% of the Nova survivors whom they interviewed, she adds, reported taking psychedelics or other drugs during the event. That added another dimension to their memories, feelings, and thinking.

In addition, many of those in attendance came from outside the Gaza border area and were not used to dealing with rocket fire from across the border.

Prof. Salomon, head of the Laboratory for the Study of Consciousness and the Self at the University of Haifa, says that the fact that the attack began at sunrise, when celebrants were approaching the peak of the trance celebration, was significant.

“It was like falling from a great height into the depths. People had come to celebrate and let go, and suddenly they were facing terror. That contrast was an important part of the experience.”

One of his research questions is whether drug use helped some survivors survive the attack.

People who attended the festival reported using alcohol, cannabis, LSD, MDMA, cocaine, and other substances, sometimes in combination, and Salomon says that he is studying how those experiences interacted with the fear and trauma of the attack.

While the majority of those surveyed said that MDMA may have shielded them from the trauma and helped them survive and save others, the results are not conclusive at this point.

Salomon says the unprecedented scale of treating Nova survivors required changes in how care was delivered.

“Usually, you sit with a client for 50 minutes in a treatment room. Here, we needed to change. Some people wouldn’t leave their homes, and were spread out throughout the country.”

In addition, he continues, many times, relatives of the survivors were the ones who approached the therapists, asking them to help their children, or cousins, or siblings, who had been at the Nova.

“Some people went home from the Nova and stayed locked up in their houses, and sometimes the mother was the one who asked for our treatment for their child.

“How do you reach someone who is locked up in a room, and you want to help him and his mother wants it, and he didn’t ask for help?”

Salomon says that therapists had to adjust to a new reality. “There was a case where we told the mother to take the phone and put it under the door of her son’s room, so that we could try to talk to him.”

Silver lining: Seeing so many volunteers support survivors

Despite the difficulties, he says it was heartening to see so many therapists volunteer with SafeHeart to support Nova survivors.

“It was deeply moving that, in such a black period, people signed up to help. We had to reach everyone, and that is part of our ethos, to offer treatment to everyone.”

Salomon explains that the trance audience includes a wide range of the Israeli population, from soldiers to academics.

“It was important to reach everyone, and not everyone was easy to reach.”

Reaching those who needed assistance was only part of the solution. The background that the SafeHeart founders had in treating people who take psychedelics was invaluable.

“Many therapists are very judgmental about the use of psychedelics,” says Plonsker. “It was important to us to meet the survivors as equals, from a place of understanding their culture. A psychedelic experience can be a unique experience, and someone [a therapist] who can’t grasp it will have a hard time understanding what they [survivors] experienced in their trauma.”

Salomon relates that a person who came to SafeHeart for treatment told them that initially he had sought treatment through his kupat holim (health fund). When he told the kupah therapist that he had taken LSD, the therapist was unable to relate to his experience and treat him.

“When he entered treatment with us, he felt that we understood him and ‘saw’ him,” says Salomon.

Shiran Maor, chairman of the board of SafeHeart, adds that some survivors who had initially approached other organizations were judged by therapists and criticized for their drug use, which caused them pain.

He says that the therapists at SafeHeart are aware of the different substances and know how each one can affect trauma.

Tadmor, a psychotherapist, co-founder of the Hof Mivtachim project, and co-founder of the Impulse Center for Integrative Therapy, says that the fact that the group of founders built a reputation – even before Oct. 7 – over 10 years as therapists who can be relied on in sensitive situations for this group and community, has made a significant difference.

“We are people who are at these festivals in the safe spaces. They know us and can turn to us and rely on us.”

Tartakovsky says that if a person does not feel free to speak about his entire experience, the therapy will not be effective. “That’s why we made ourselves available, as a member of the ‘tribe’ of the trance community. We are with you and are part of the story, and we invite you to speak about it.”

Zagursky, SafeHeart’s head of therapeutic services, succinctly summarizes the approach:

“We are part of the trance community, and we came from this community. We want to bring to the front that we know that people do take these substances, and it is okay. We want to normalize it, so that they shouldn’t feel uneasy about undergoing treatment.”

Evolving treatment: From acute emergency response to long term rehabilitation

How has treatment for the survivors of the Nova changed since Oct. 7? Plonsker explains:

“At first, we were responding to an acute emergency. Today, much of our work concerns long-term trauma treatment and rehabilitation: getting up in the morning, returning to work, sustaining relationships, and living with persistent symptoms. Substance use and addiction can also become part of the clinical picture.”

Maor says one complicating factor in treatment is that rehabilitation began while the wider crisis was still unfolding. Some of the hostages were people from the festival, and survivors were living with the knowledge that friends were still being held.

“Sirens, further attacks, and continuing uncertainty kept producing new triggers,” he notes. “It is very hard to move forward while asking yourself how you can return to life when your friend is still captive.”

Some people who thought they had put the experience behind them, he says, later encountered its effects when they tried to return to work or study. Anger, difficulty functioning, and other symptoms could reappear. The need for support does not necessarily follow a straightforward timeline.

Looking back at the early days of SafeHeart, Grynbaum, who specializes at Magnus International Search & Rescue in rescuing people experiencing mental health crises, says that in the first weeks following Oct. 7, there were incredible initiatives. “So much adrenaline, so much motivation, and so many people stepping forward in extraordinary ways.

“Thank God, we brought together an exceptionally strong group of professionals, advisers, and others working in the field. It was very special. I think that period was marked by tremendously courageous action.”

Healing from trauma is a long-term process. For many, they say, recovery means living with trauma.

Says Efrat Atun, SafeHeart CEO: “After three years in which we have provided mental health care to more than 2,500 survivors through a network of 400 therapists specializing in trauma, it is important to emphasize that coping with trauma is a very long marathon – one that becomes even longer amid a security situation that offers no moment of stability.

“There is an expectation that survivors should have already ‘returned to normal life’ because three years have passed.

“And indeed, some survivors have made remarkable progress and feel much better today. That progress is real, moving, and a source of tremendous hope.”■

On November 11, the organization will hold its SafeHeart Conference at the Peres Center for Peace, in Jaffa, on the subject of trauma, psychedelics, and therapy, along with the power of community. The conference will serve as a central platform for therapists, researchers, and professionals to discuss the latest clinical and research insights at the meeting point of trauma, psychedelics, and healing.