Copyright

Caesar Hakim; Hamish J. McLeod; Mohammad Alkhatib

Published On

2026-08-04

Language

  • English

Print Length

71 pages

THEMA

  • JMN
  • JBCC7
  • JH

BISAC

  • PSY003000
  • PSY031000
  • PSY030000
  • SOC002010
  • SOC042000

Keywords

  • Applied psychology in conflict zones
  • Palestinian villages
  • Community mental health
  • Cross-cultural psychology
  • Trauma and resilience studies
  • Qualitative fieldwork narratives

4. The Village of Deir Talal

Psychological Assessment in Context

Chapter of: Applied Psychology in Context: Stories and Lessons from Palestinian Villages

This chapter uses the story of Amal, a young psychologist working from a mental health centre in Deir Talal, and Aseel, a young girl who stops attending school after a night-time military raid on her family's home, to walk through the process of psychological assessment step by step. Beginning with the raid itself and its aftermath, the chapter follows how a family's crisis surfaces first as a school-reported behavioural problem, then unfolds through intake interviews, developmental history, family mapping, and observation of the child at play. Along the way it addresses the practical building blocks of assessment: distinguishing a presenting complaint from a reason for referral, documenting a family's own understanding of a problem, tracing relationship dynamics across family, personal, and social levels, and recognising when symptoms may point toward sensory, language, or developmental causes and not only a psychological one. The chapter then follows Amal as she moves from raw information toward a psychological formulation, showing how a child's story is translated into clinical language and connected to relevant developmental theory, before arriving at a treatment plan centred on rebuilding safety, relationship, and parental attunement. Throughout, the chapter argues that assessment in a setting marked by conflict and scarce resources must remain sensitive to culture, language, and the practical limits on a family's capacity to engage, and that the specialist's task is not to collect answers to a form but to understand a person's life closely enough to help.

Contributors

Caesar Hakim

(author)
Visiting Academic at University of Edinburgh
Honorary Lecturer at University of Glasgow
Assistant Professor at An-Najah National University
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0850-3182

Dr. Caesar Hakim is a clinical psychologist, supervisor, and academic whose career spans clinical practice, teaching, and research. His expertise encompasses psychodiagnostics, psychotherapy, and clinical supervision, with a particular interest in trauma and mental health within communities affected by war and displacement. He holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Haifa (2015) and currently serves as Assistant Professor at An-Najah National University and Honorary Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. From 2025 to 2026, he was a Visiting Academic at the University of Edinburgh. He has served as Clinical Director at a mental health centre and, for nearly a decade, as a clinical supervisor, training and mentoring psychologists in assessment and psychotherapy. He also led the development of a psychology internship programme in Palestine, established in partnership with NHS Scotland and the University of Glasgow. His publications include Curcum's Trees: A Decolonial Healing Guide and Applied Psychology in Context: Stories and Lessons from Villages Under Occupation, both of which reflect his commitment to culturally grounded approaches to trauma and mental health care.

Hamish J McLeod

(author)
Professor of Clinical Psychology and Programme Director for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at University of Glasgow
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4225-1815

Prof. Hamish J McLeod qualified as a clinical psychologist in 1992 and then completed a PhD at Imperial College, University of London. His clinical practice in the NHS has been focused working with people experiencing complex mental health and neuropsychological conditions. He is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Glasgow and Programme Director for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology course.

Mohammad Alkhatib

(author)

Mohammad Alkhatib is an early-career clinical psychologist with a Master’s in Clinical Psychology from An-Najah National University. He has over five years of experience at Bethlehem's Guidance and Training Center, specializing in clinical Psychology and mental health training. This book marks his first as an author.