Um Ahmad is 22 years old woman, who lives in Jenin camp. She was concerned about her child. She complained that he was not the same anymore. He stopped eating well, showed restlessness and sleeping problems, crying and calling for his father.

I, as a telephone counselor, studied the history and development of the case through the phone calls of the mother. It was revealed that the child was traumatized. He witnessed the death of his father. The mother said that she witnessed a terrible day when she ran into her children's toy room. The father has fallen on the ground, full of his blood while the children (Ahmad and his eight months sister) were crying around him .It was an unusual day that Ahmad witnessed everything related to his father's death from the moment of the father's falling down (seeing and smelling the blood) till he was carried by the ambulance. It was a curfew and clashes in Jenin camp and everything was disorganized and chaotic. Days went off and the mother went to live with her family. She came into developing understanding of what had happened. However, Ahmad who was less than three years of age became a different person, constantly asking about his father and the time for his arrival back to the home. The mothers was afraid to talk about the situation believing that it was better not to speak about " the death of the father " in order to protect the child from harmful psychological feelings. She read GCMHP's free toll number on of the daily newspaper and decided to call fro help.
First I encouraged her to talk about the experience and let the child explore the incident with the mother. Although she was reluctant at the beginning, I taught her ways to deal with child and introducing the subject to him. It was important for the child and the mother to talk about the incident , to dramatize, to draw, and to color . The child was given an opportunity to talk on the line with me. The mother understood the idea, started experiencing with her child and reflecting on his feelings. After three calls, she told that drastic change happened to the behavior of her child. We let it go with the help of the telephone and mother at that time expressed all thanks praying. I was astonished with the rapid results with such child.
To conclude , this story made me believe that counseling by phone can be helpful to some patients who can't reach our centers and that we can reach out to them due to crisis situations. This story, also, means so much for so many people whom we say to them that we are there in every house that has a line. When you can't reach a professional for consultation due to curfews or check points or you suffer from poverty, just pick up the phone and call us…We will always be there to help you out in your crisis.