Dana Amir, PhD, 2025
/Professor Amir’s pioneering work has brought a novel and sophisticated perspective to the study of how trauma is conveyed in language and her research has become a vital tool for both therapeutic and broader social interventions. Amir’s work portrays the traumatic lacuna as a melting pot of language that creates multiple forms of external and internal syntax. Her research delves into both perpetrators’ and victims’ testimonies, focusing on aspects such as word choice, tone, rhythm, and inflection. Through this approach, she encourages clinicians and patients alike to cultivate a poetic and lyrical sensitivity, one that focuses on the narrator rather than on the narrative, thus shedding light not on the factual story but on the unique way it is structured.
By mapping the interplay between dissociative and associative forces, Amir has identified new pathways for therapeutic intervention, demonstrating that language can serve simultaneously as a symptom of trauma and a vehicle for healing. This dual role of language is also reflected in her own poetic creations, which embody the dialectic between psychic pain and creativity. Amir’s research and insights on the language of revenge and forgiveness provided a framework for facilitating dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians has been used for broader social interventions.
As a clinician, scholar, administrator, and published Hebrew-language poet, Amir has played a significant role in reinvigorating psychoanalytic thought within the Israeli academic community. In 2015 she established and continues to lead the interdisciplinary doctoral and postdoctoral track in psychoanalysis at Haifa University.