Eternal Present: A Story About Post Trauma

The novel tells the story of a military psychologist serving as a psychology officer in the Israeli Air Force, who himself suffers from combat trauma following the Yom Kippur War. His daily drives transporting soldiers from Jerusalem to the base form the narrative framework, but the heart of the story unfolds within his mind: memories of battle, postwar life, and failed intimate relationships shaped by deep emotional detachment.
The book explores the roots of post-traumatic stress not only in the war itself, but also in earlier experiences of displacement, immigration, and cultural identity. These tensions surface in his conflicting attraction to Ashkenazi and Mizrahi women. As the story progresses, the accounts of soldiers under his care trigger new flashbacks, threatening to unravel both his personal and family life.
Psychological treatment is not portrayed as a dramatic cure, but as a slow, everyday, and demanding process that offers gradual relief and cautious recovery. Written in the third person, the novel reflects emotional self-distance, a hallmark of post-traumatic experience, and invites readers into an intimate, painful, and deeply human inner journey.

Netzer Daie is a senior clinical psychologist and certified supervisor in psychotherapy, psychodiagnostics, and hypnotherapy. He directs the HILA Institute for the Study and Practice of Hypnosis. With over forty years of clinical experience, he specializes in treating dissociative symptoms resulting from psychological trauma. He is the co-author of The Enigma of Dissociation (with Eliezer Witztum and Ayala Daie-Gabay; Itay Bahur Publishing, 2020).