A Bathroom Without a Seat

I work at an agency in a central city in Israel that focuses on treating children who are survivors and perpetrators of sexual violence. The office has one bathroom with two private toilet rooms: a toilet without a toilet seat for men and a women's bathroom. The neglected toilet seat has been on the floor for approximately three or four months; no one has fixed it. This has prompted me to draw some conclusions about how an agency's physical space may be encumbered by signs that re-evoke trauma for patients. The neglect of physical spaces within sexual trauma treatment, especially in public agency settings, can potentially thwart treatment and harm a patient's attempt at healing, sense of agency, and reentering community.

For many years, the agency I work in has been known as a center that specializes in treating child/adolescent survivors and perpetrators of sexual abuse, incest, and trauma. Many clinicians across Israel know of this organization and speak highly of it. Prominent Israeli psychoanalysts and clinicians have either worked here or supervised here in one form or another. This agency is known for its psychoanalytic leanings and receives many referrals from municipal welfare departments who, by Israeli law, must refer children and adolescents to funded treatment after being recognized as victims.

The agency office used to be situated in an established, well-to-do neighborhood. Due to financial limitations, the agency had to move offices and relocated to a different neighborhood, which is dominated by car mechanics, garages, and auto repair shops. During the day, the area is bustling with a high percentage of men primarily working these very physical jobs entailing much strain and effort. The sounds in this neighborhood are important data: drilling, metallic sounds, men yelling, scooters speeding, hammers banging against metal objects. The visual images, equally relevant, are mainly men immersed in physical labor, working on machines