A national Jewish rights organization is filing a complaint against a mental health practitioner it is accusing of racially discriminating against patients and spreading “antisemitic misinformation.”
B’nai Brith Canada said it has complained about British Columbia psychotherapist Dania Chebib to the B.C. Association of Clinical Councillors due to advertisements for her practice which openly discriminate based on ethnic and national origin.
Chebib took down the racially discriminatory note advertising her practice in Kelowna, B.C. on Psychology Today, but it still appears in some cached versions of the site.
“Note: currently only accepting Palestinian, Arab, South West Asian and North African diaspora clients due to humanitarian crisis in Palestine,” the advertisement said.
With many Canadians struggling to find mental health supports, this is especially problematic, a representative of B’nai Brith Canada said.
“It’s one thing for a mental health practitioner to specialize in clients of a certain gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic or national background,” Richard Robertson, the Jewish group’s director of research and advocacy, told True North. “It’s another thing to limit your practice at a time when Canadians are struggling to access mental health practitioners.”
The human rights group also accused Chebib of violating the B.C. clinician’s standards and questioned the effect her attitudes could have on patients.
“Clinicians have to be able to act in the best interests of their clients, and should this clinician have a client who is Jewish or Zionist, we are concerned that (Chebib) would be unable to act in the best interest of that client,” Robertson said.
In one video, the clinician recorded herself doing “grassroots activism,” where she entered a Starbucks and accused customers of participating in genocide.
“I just like to let you know that Starbucks is funding Israel. They’re sending missiles, and your coffees are killing Palestinian children. Enjoy your day. Enjoy your coffee. There’s blood in them,” she said in the video.
Chebib did not respond to True North’s request for comment.
B’nai Brith also noted in the complaint that Chebib had called Israel an “illegitimate settler colony,” promoting symbols associated with terrorism and diminishing the Holocaust by suggesting its significance is only recognized because Hitler’s victims were European.
She also has reposted claims calling Israel’s war against Hamas a genocide while calling terrorism at the hands of Hamas “Palestinian resistance” while pledging support for such resistance.
“As a human rights organization, we have concerns about the ability of somebody who engages such anti-semitic, the dissemination of such antisemitic vitriol being able to fulfill their obligations under their code of ethics as a mental health clinician, as a psychotherapist,” Robertson said.
The BCACC standards of practice prohibit discrimination or racism against anyone based on race, colour, and national origin, among other characteristics.
Robertson said B’nai Brith posits that it’s in Canadians’ best interests that clinicians remain in the highest repute and follow the standards set out by their practice.
“It’s a privilege to practice in certain professions regulated in Canada. Suppose those regulations require that you maintain the competence and trust of the community in the society in which you serve. Your conduct outside of your practice becomes a valid concern when it is reprehensible,” he said. “This is a concern for everyone in society, and we feel it’s necessary to ensure that Canadian professionals remain in the most repute and abide by the standards and codes of ethics established for them.”