Gabrielle Rifkind


Gabrielle Rifkind is a practising psychotherapist and group analyst, who works in conflict resolution in the Middle East. Much of her special contribution is around the role of human motivation and behaviour in resolving conflict.
She directs the Oxford Process which started off as a programme of the NGO, Oxford Research Group, but is now a separate conflict prevention initiative which specialises in managing radical disagreement.
A political entrepreneur, Rifkind has, over the last decade, created a number of quiet behind-the-scenes round-table discussions, often between groups who are not currently in dialogue in the Middle East. Her special areas of interest are Iran and the Palestine-Israel conflict. Her particular areas of expertise are the creation of suitable environments for negotiations and addressing the historical traumas and mistrust of the parties involved to avoid disruption of talks. Rifkind believes that creating a coherent and sustained framework is essential for any kind of negotiation, as it allows to deal not only with substance but also with the suspicions that sits in the way of the resolution of conflict.
A graduate of the University of Manchester and postgraduate of the University of Edinburgh, Rifkind lives in London and makes regular contributions to the media, e.g. for The Guardian, The Independent and BBC Radio 4. She has appeared on various news and political analysis programmes, has given many public lectures and engaged in debates at venues ranging from the Oxford Union and the House of Commons to Chatham House and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
She is author, with Scilla Elworthy, of Making Terrorism History, with Giandomenico Picco, of The Fog of Peace: How to Prevent War., and The Psychology of Political Extremism: What would Sigmund Freud have thought about Islamic State.

Publications