In last week's New York Times, Michael Oren published an opinion piece called "An End to Israel's Invisibility." Oren comments on the latest breakdown in communication -- the latest threat to peace -- among leaders of Israel and Palestine. His article struck me as particularly noteworthy and sensitive in part because I just returned home from a trip to Dubai, where I, a Jewish clinician, went to treat a seven-year-old Arab child who has Selective Mutism (SM). SM is a social anxiety disorder that inhibits a young child's ability to speak; it is, I often say, an 'equal opportunity disorder' because it prevents children in all parts of the world from having a voice. My job in Dubai, then, was to use an intensive behavioral therapy to help Ahmed speak in his second grade class and with people who were not his parents.
Dubai is situated in a vast expanse of sandy desert south of the Persian Gulf. It was over 100 degrees when I arrived there two weeks ago. Ahmed's father picked me up from my hotel, and together we drove to his family's home. It was an intense car ride, if only because Ahmed, in the back seat, wouldn't say a single word even to his father. His father tried prompting him to speak by asking questions, but since Ahmed was uncomfortable with my presence, he averted his gaze and remained painfully silent.
It's often remarked that when someone we love is ill we will reach across borders we might not otherwise. Such were the circumstances that brought me to Dubai. But while my identity as a Jewish doctor was recognized by Ahmed's family, what mattered in our relationship was our shared determination to conquer SM. This meant that we spent 8 hours a day together, for 5 days, engaged in an intensive, evidence-based therapy designed to gradually bring Ahmed into closer contact, play, and conversation with other kids and adults.
Ahmed's father periodically excused himself to pray in nearby mosques, and Ahmed's mother, who wore a traditional gown and burqa, often stayed in another part of the house, but we also spent time together. To reward Ahmed for "brave talking," we went ice skating at the Dubai Mall, went swimming in my hotel's pool, and we stopped for ice cream at Baskin-Robbins, where Ahmed, who wouldn't say a word when he first met me, boldly ordered cones for everyone.
If you've never met a child with SM, then it may be difficult to imagine Ahmed's transformation. Prior to treatment, Ahmed's inability to speak was severely interfering with his day-to-day life, particularly at school, and his parents had tried what they thought was every trick in the book to help him. They came into contact with me after I'd successfully treated another child in Dubai -- a child whose parents, incidentally, found me through a Google search on the Internet. To be clear, they didn't find a miracle worker; I just know SM very, very well, and I've spent much of the last 10 years developing and refining what I believe is the most promising behavioral therapy to treat SM in children up to age nine.
I also spent time with Ahmed at school. In his second grade classroom, we did confidence-building exercises that got him verbalizing and socializing with greater and greater ease. His classmates, most of whom also speak both Arabic and English, slowly joined us in games that involved building Lego sculptures (we took turns giving each other directions) and using sign language (one person would sign and we'd call out the letter that sign represented). Ahmed's teachers helped at every step, and our progress, while incremental, was profound after only two days.
So, Oren's article in The New York Times. It deeply resonates with me, but not because I view my time with Ahmed's family in Dubai as some kind of parable; I certainly don't subscribe to the idea that Jews and Muslims in Israel could find common ground so easily, or that an Arab family seeking help from a Jewish doctor is on a scale with peace talks in the Middle East.
Instead, I respond to Oren's article with a kind of sorrow -- knowing that the sort of cooperation that gives a child in Dubai his voice (his visibility, in a sense) remains utterly elusive to Israelis and Palestinians who have been in conflict for more than 62 years.
I haven't lost hope, though. And I can't lose hope. I have to believe that, in the end, we all want the same thing: for our children to feel that their voices matter, and that they can live, from New York to Tel Aviv to Dubai and beyond, in genuine and lasting peace.
Steven M.S. Kurtz, PhD, ABPP, is director of the Selective Mutism Program and senior director of the Center for ADHD & Disruptive Behavior Disorders at the Child Mind Institute.