Ms. Nechama Tal

Art therapist, researcher, and lecturer. Joined the Art Therapy Program faculty at Bar-Ilan University in 2025. PhD candidate at the School of Creative Arts Therapies at the University of Haifa, where she researches the prevention of post-traumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents in the emergency department.

For her master's thesis, Nechama investigated the effects of the Memory Structuring Intervention with Vagal Breathing and Drawing (MSI + VB) on trauma prevention in children and adolescents in the emergency department. In her doctoral research, she further investigates the prevention of PTSD in the same population, focusing on the role of cognitive emotion regulation skills within the Memory Structuring Intervention with drawing.

Nechama brings over a decade of clinical experience in mental health, including long-term work at the school within the pediatric departments of Shaare Zedek Medical Center, and maintains a private practice in Jerusalem. Her areas of specialization include trauma, anxiety, disability and chronic illness, and grief and loss. Clinically, she integrates art therapy with EMDR, CBT, DBT, and Schema Therapy.

Alongside her academic and clinical work, Nechama has volunteered for over a decade with the Senior Resilience Unit of United Hatzalah, providing psychological first aid in trauma and mass casualty events, and has served for several years as coordinator of the unit in west Jerusalem. Following the events of October 7th, she worked across multiple sites, facilitating interventions and trauma processing sessions with paramedics and field workers who had been exposed to traumatic scenes, and provided individual and group clinical support to children, adolescents, and adults through the Sderot and Eshkol Resilience Centers. Nechama is a graduate of the Mandel Leadership Program.