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In this episode, Rabbi Mendel Kastel speaks with Dr Kate Gould, a clinical neuropsychologist and researcher at Monash University, about brain injury, rehabilitation, and restorative approaches to justice. Dr Gould shares her work supporting people with acquired brain injuries in the justice system, and the need for trauma-aware, person-centred responses. .
Together, they explore where faith, neuroscience, and human dignity intersect—and how awareness, not judgment, opens the door to healing.Sometimes the hardest pain isn’t the obvious kind. It’s staying silent when something hurts you. It’s feeling unsafe in your body. It’s smiling and saying “I’m okay” even when you’re not.
In the latest episode of Navigating Antisemitism: A Practical Podcast, Rabbi Mendel Kastel sits down with Dr Kate Gould. She’s a clinical neuropsychologist, founder of Thinkfully, and a research fellow at Monash University.
Kate divides her time between private practice – with a focus on brain injury, cognition, and mental health – and leading trauma-informed research. She’s guided communities, backed frontline mental health workers, and helped create spaces where questions are welcomed, not feared.
This isn’t a conversation about jargon, theory or diagnosis. It’s about what safety actually feels like—and what happens when it disappears.
Rabbi Mendel begins the episode with what he’s seeing firsthand: a rise in fear, stress and emotional exhaustion among Jewish people seeking support. He asks how this shows up in the day-to-day.
Kate answers plainly. “People could be very nervous and afraid and worried and anxious, quite stressed and even panicked. Some people can experience feeling quite numb and avoidant, inattentive and distracted… Others might feel combative, defiant, frustrated, angry, irritable and aggressive.”
There’s no one right reaction. But the signs are there – if people know what to look for. Struggling with concentration. Trouble sleeping. More alcohol than usual. Withdrawn, shut down, or unusually reactive. And sometimes, no signs at all.
“You might look around and think someone seems fine,” Rabbi Mendel says. “But they might not be.”
One of the most powerful metaphors in the episode is Kate’s “coping cup.”
Every person has one. It fills with stress, trauma, worry, past experiences, and day-to-day pressures. “And their emotional coping cup might actually be quite full or overflowing,” she says. Antisemitism doesn’t land in isolation—it lands on top of everything else.
Kate reminds listeners that there’s still leftover strain from COVID. Add to that financial pressure, global grief, community division, and the threat of being targeted—and it’s not surprising that people shut down or lash out.
It’s not just what happens to people. It’s what happens around them. Kate points to the role of media and group messaging in heightening distress.
“Our media exposure for a whole range of world events is often… designed these days to evoke a strong emotional response to get you to click on a story.”
For many people, doomscrolling isn’t just a habit—it’s a stress cycle. “That can lead to a greater sense that we’re unsafe,” she says. Even community WhatsApp groups, while helpful, can keep people locked into fear.
Rabbi Mendel reflects on how people seem overwhelmed by stories, headlines and updates. Kate agrees—and urges people to notice the impact. “Is it making you sleepless? Is it making you feel really distraught and distressed? That’s the point…to reflect.”
Shabbat, she suggests, can be more than a religious ritual. It can be a weekly digital detox. A reset.
When Rabbi Mendel asks about the physical side of stress, Kate offers a breakdown that’s both clinical and relatable.
“Your heart starts racing, you start breathing faster, more shallow, your face gets hot, you get sweaty, you start feeling agitated and want to move.” That’s the sympathetic nervous system in action. And it’s not a bad thing,unless it doesn’t switch off.
“When we’re dealing with more chronic levels of stress and discrimination and worry, that system that is designed for just a very short time can stay engaged.”
The long-term effects can be serious. Chronic stress impacts digestion, sleep, memory, immune function and decision-making. Without space to recover, the body burns out.
“We actually need to then shift to the rebalancing system,” Kate says. That means slowing down, breathing deeply, activating the part of the brain that helps people make sense of things – not just react.
When two people experience the same event, their responses might look completely different. Rabbi Mendel asks why that is.
Kate brings it back to life history. “It goes back to what I mentioned earlier about a sense of this coping cup.” If someone is already carrying trauma – personal or intergenerational – it doesn’t take much to spill it.
She speaks openly about being a third-generation Holocaust survivor. “We have been internalising those fears and those stories about this being something that can happen in reality… it still is alive in our minds.”
That doesn’t mean people are paranoid. It means they’re human. “It’s that intergenerational knowing we have about our place and our safety in the world.”
Even people who’ve done therapy or developed strong coping skills can be shaken. But those same people may also be better equipped to face it. “It really depends on not only your stressors, but your skills and your support.”
Rabbi Mendel shifts the conversation to the therapy room. What should mental health professionals do differently when working with Jewish clients?
Kate answers clearly. “We should be individualising our support to the people in front of us.” And that starts with curiosity, not assumption.
Judaism isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some people practise religiously. Others connect through culture, family, tradition or values. “What being Jewish might mean to them… will depend on how that person experiences their Judaism.”
With a new national code of conduct on the way for psychologists, cultural responsiveness will soon become a formal requirement. “It’s about ensuring we are… really meeting the individual cultural needs of our clients and patients.”
Therapists don’t need to follow every incident in the news. But they do need to care enough to ask, and be open to what they hear.
Outside the therapy room, the same principles apply. Show up. Be curious. Don’t disappear.
Rabbi Mendel says many non-Jewish colleagues, friends and neighbours don’t know what to say. So they say nothing.
Kate urges them to say something anyway. “There isn’t anything that is particularly sophisticated that is needed to show support.” A message. A check-in. A quiet acknowledgement. “It’s okay to say, ‘I’m not sure what to say.’”
What hurts, she says, is the sense that others don’t see what’s happening. “Many people are quite stoic and might be hiding it… that’s not always the case.”
The small gestures matter. And they’re remembered.
In the final moments of the episode, Rabbi Mendel and Kate speak about Jewish tradition; not as nostalgia, but as resilience.
“We don’t forget. But over time we process, we reframe and we even repackage what we’ve gone through.”
Kate points to how Jewish rituals carry the weight of history. “We eat charoset to remember labour and slavery. We light candles at Hanukkah. We eat hamantaschen. This is the fabric of the stories that we share.”
Even in pain, Jewish communities create meaning. “We are a resilient, strong people built on stories and generations of survival,” she says. “And we will be passing this story on… of how we got through this difficult time.”
