What next for Israel’s released hostages?

0:00How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow. Coming up on the Sky News Daily, the remaining 20 Israelis have been released by Hamas, but what help do they need now? How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order?

0:44What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.

1:18Oh, how they cheered. More than two years on from the horrors of October 7th, this was a moment of joy. an entire country glued to TVs and devices as the remaining 20 Israeli hostages were brought back, brought home to Israel. On a day many must have thought would never come, families and friends reunited, though some simply couldn't wait to see them in the flesh.

1:47My Matan, says Einar Zangokar to her son on a video call. The war is over. You are coming home. You are all coming home.

2:01But the undoubted high of this moment will be followed by lows. Two plus years in captivity would have an effect on anyone, psychologically as much as physically. So what happens next for the hostages? Stephen Riegel is founder of the Centre for Trauma, Resilience and Growth, former mental health advisor to Hostage International and former senior psychosocial practitioner with the British Red Cross. Inevitably, it's going to be a different experience for each individual. I think the overwhelming sense that will be universal would be that sense of relief and that sense that they will be back in safety with family, with friends, in familiar surroundings, that their previous life, that they've existed and their period as a hostage has ended.

2:53Certainly in physical terms, we know that there will be psychological journeys that people will have to undertake. So whilst one chapter has ended, some new ones are beginning. Tell me then just a little bit more about those new chapters. But what is the sort of trauma that an individual might well find themselves experiencing? What I know is, and from speaking to former hostages, is that people don't get over things. You don't just forget this experience. It stays with you. Some people become much more resilient than what we often describe as post-traumatic growth. They have a greater sense of value for families, friends, for life in general, that life has new meanings.

3:40For others, it may be less so. So everybody will experience them differently. they will all have that sense of relief will want to be with family and friends they will have a range of experiences in terms of their sensory perceptions because all of them will have such different experiences in terms of either being maybe deprived of natural light being on their own either being with others maybe being in extreme privation i think when we talk about things concepts like post-traumatic stress. We have to say that for many people there was no post to their trauma over the last two years. It's kind of ongoing, and this continues for a while because there will be constant reminders of their experience.

4:30And these can be very subtle. These could be the sound of a voice. These can be sounds in the environment, changes in lighting. So there's all these minute, very subtle changes that will trigger changes in somebody's emotional response. Given then how sensitively these individuals will need to be handled over the coming hours and indeed days, what is the priority for those who will be charged with their care? I know from my knowledge of the past and how this has been dealt with in different countries, in particular in Israel, is that there'll be significant preparations made for this return and that things will be put in place according to everybody's individual needs and according to the family needs and according to whether or not they've had any physical injuries, for example.

5:23What I perhaps find most surprising, Stephen, is that at the moment of release, my first thought would be, OK, they go straight home to the bosom of their friends and their family. But in Israel, specific centers have been set up to provide that medical care, to provide that psychological support. There is almost a period of decompression for these hostages before they will be returning home proper. Yes, there will be. And some of them might not return home straight away. So there will be this period of time because it will be understandable that people will need and require psychological assessment.

6:02So I think that for people who have been through an experience to be shielded in as much as possible and to gradually reintegrate their normal lives, this is not a simple process. some people will inevitably be if i can use that word more resilient than than others there may be factors that they've encountered during their experiences which will determine their psychological outcome and their responses to their experience in terms of not just gender age um whether or not they've been exposed to physical violence what they've seen what they've witnessed So those are all the things that are going to make a difference to their journey.

6:48What will they be trying to do with them in these first early days? I think in the first early days will be allowing people some time, some space, but in a very protected environment, allowing them to talk, to be with their families, to share their experiences. I think that they will be wanting to engender a sense of safety above anything. The integration with their families and loved ones is going to be paramount. But I think it's about how they do this. And I think that this will be done in a very, very managed way for individuals concerned. The layperson person, I think this person will need counselling.

7:30And I guess that actually what most people will need would be information, would be an understanding of what would be normal in this kind of situation. because my experience has been in the past working with hostages is or ex-hostages is that one of the things that needs to be done is to normalize many of the things that they've been going through to reassure them that then that this experience and the way that they're manifesting itself that this is not unusual given what they've been through and others would have been through that experience. Meeting with other people who've been held hostage, that kind of peer support might be useful.

8:15I'm not saying that it will be, but I've known that in the past that hostages have gained a tremendous amount of comfort from meeting and being with others who've been through their experience. Amongst the people that you have worked with, how have the senses coped moving from that period of incarceration into literally the wider world again. I think that inevitably that's the main aim that people who are responsible for their immediate care will be looking to manage, is not to overload them. I mean, it's clear that, you know, if you might have spent, you know, months underground, that coming into daylight will be a shock in itself.

8:58There are inevitably going to be this sensory overload. And I think there's also the experiences of day-to-day things like many people may not have been obviously they may be sleeping on the hard floors and I think it might be difficult to adjust to being back on what would be described as a normal bed again and sometimes that transition will take some time. So the sensory overload is something that is inevitable and will have to be managed. Stephen I wonder if over the course of your work you have encountered individuals who upon their release felt guilt, guilt that they had managed to survive where perhaps others had not?

9:37The emotion of guilt is very, very common. That survivor guilt, as you're describing, is that they survived, that loved ones, friends, family members didn't survive. That will take time, that people will need to come to terms with in very, very skilled psychological hands. Most people in time come to terms with their experience. The notion of guilt is one of the most common emotional responses following exposure to a traumatic event. I've seen it in so many families who've lost a child, with individuals who've been in hostage situations with friends and colleagues. The question of why me is often something that comes up is the what-ifs, very common and very, it's something that you hear so often.

10:29And some of the things that, you know, I've often tried to help people with, and it does take time, is that there's often no what-ifs, there's only what-is. This is about what is and how do we deal with this. So this notion of guilt is a very, very common experience. And I think that allowing people to see that this is not something that they can be blamed for in some way, and that experience is, and also guilt is an experience that, or an emotion that we tend to feel very strongly when we have information after an event that we didn't have before. You know, like, where were you when this happened?

11:09People often say, I could have done something differently. I could have been in a different place. So that will be something that will be very, very common for many who have been released. Stephen, I'm getting the impression that the next few days, the next few weeks for these hostages will be intense, will be difficult. But at some point where they leave these facilities and they go home, the work presumably continues though. Yes. And I think for some people, they may need longer term psychological support. Others will need less. And for many people, it's the meaning of the experience. People who have been through a traumatic experience of any sort often take away the meaning of that experience for them.

11:55One of the things that I've often seen, sometimes people can acquire celebrity status. And what that can do is can impede their normal processing of that experience. So I think those are the sort of things I'd be wanting to think, say to people, you know, be measured in how much of that you do because that can prevent you from processing the experience. So just telling the story over and over again can impede how you process that experience. I mean, I noted there that you talked of recovery and then changed to journey. Stephen, this is going to be something that they will carry with them for the rest of their days.

12:39Absolutely. And people will deal with it in very different ways. People will write about their experiences. People may use creative processes to deal with that experience and come to terms with their trauma and their loss. So there'll be a variety of ways in which people try and deal with this. In fact, for many people, they use that experience in very, very different and positive ways. Stephen, what about the rest of Israel? this is a nation that has seen two years of conflict, starting, of course, with the barbarism that everyone witnessed on October the 7th. Is it possible that events can scar an entire nation psychologically?

13:20I think when things like this affect a nation, wherever that nation is, I think it's felt in a universal way. Anybody who has a family will identify with those who have been held, will identify with this sense of relief on release, will identify with the joy that families express at receiving their loved ones back, whether that's in those who are living as well as those who are deceased. The emotions that I think hostages and their families will feel will probably be felt by hundreds of thousands of people around them. Thanks, Stephen. As for the latest as to the hostage transfer and indeed peace in the Middle East, just head to the website, scannews.com.

14:08The Daily's back tomorrow.

14:21of humanity. I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.