FLAME with Brad Hook
Can a Dog Heal PTSD, Addiction, and Homelessness?
Yishai Ishi Ron is a novelist, former soldier and survivor of severe PTSD. His book Dog — long-listed for Israel's Sapir Prize and now becoming a film — is a raw, redemptive story of trauma and the fragile journey back to humanity.
Yishai writes from the inside: trauma, addiction and homelessness aren't research topics for him but lived terrain. Dog traces that descent and the improbable route back — and at its centre is the bond between a broken man and an animal that asks for nothing and judges nothing.
Drawing on his own experience and his background in psychology, Yishai explores what actually reaches a person when human help can't get through — and why the way back to humanity often starts with something other than humans. Haunting, honest and ultimately hopeful.
In this episode
- PTSD from the inside — a soldier-novelist's account
- Trauma, addiction and homelessness as connected descents
- What an animal's presence does that human help can't
- The story behind Dog, from Sapir Prize long-list to film
- The fragile journey back to humanity
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