Tatjana, psychologist, leader of Promir, a psychological centre for the treatment of children and adults with war traumata

»I'm organizing the professional, psychological work at Promir centre. There are individual talks and we offer seminars. We are developing projects and I'm trying to present our centre at different governmental institutions.
One part of our work is paid by the state, but there are also areas where we work as volunteers. The relationship with the governmental institutions is slowly improving hence they have recognized the need of our work and so they support us for example in regard of workspace. All therapists in the centre are behavioral therapists. I've participated in all the trainings and events which are offered in this area. I started my work in the main office of Rinat Achmetov - there were also specialists from Russia and Israel, who supported us as supervisors. As a result of former wars, Russia has much more extensive experience with people affected by a war trauma compared to our experience in Ukraine. At the same time, we are in close contact with the Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, from where we get support, too.
Supervisions are held by external experts in the centre and peer consultings take place where we share our knowledge among each other. We have acquired our knowledge either from psychoanalysts or behavioral therapists.
War traumata are manifested in different reactions among the affected persons, for example there are people who are very sensitive to loud noises and whose total body contracts. There are many fears or the situation that children cling to their mothers and the mothers are not able to leave the child alone in the house.
The duration of the therapies is always different, we treated some people for two years and with the Mohyla Academy in Kyiv we had the agreement that there will be 12 sessions for each client. But there are always exceptions.
We work in different stages to rebuild the self-confidence of a child. There are logical and constant sequences in our work.
First we work with security. When we meet with a client - whether a child or an adult - for the first time, it is important to always meet in the same room at the same time, so that the clients become accustomed to safety and stability. For example in regard to children the toys, that we use, should remain the same and not be changed. What does a child feel during a shooting?
Fear, dread and horror. So the possibility to build up a safe space for the child is the basis on which we can talk with the children about deeper things at a later point.
After this we focus more on the sensitivity in our work and try to give it back to the children. Then, the child begins to develop ideas and plans for the future and it can talk more quietly about things that happened in his past. Perhaps the child manages to incorporate the incidents in the story in a better way and to establish a connection. If the child is able to talk more calmly about what has happened, we also come to a point where self-confidence can return.
In order that we as therapists remain calm and stable, it's important that we receive professional help. We talk a lot about how we can keep our personalities and not lose our trust. We support each other and form a community, so it's basically a kind of psychological body care that we are doing. I have learned from the children to react spontaneously and to do what I really want.
When a client no longer needs us, this gives us a positive feedback and strengthens us concerning our work. We also provide family assistance if they have lost someone and frequently the parents and relatives are unable to talk to their children about it. Talking about the loss of a person is not yet accepted in our societal culture, but one is rather trying to keep children away from such events and not confronting them, for example it is said that someone has flown away.
The children's psyche is even more plastic and formable, so there are many ways to work with it.
But this is only possible if the child has the opportunity to experience the truth. If the child does not receive the necessary information, it will beginn to fantasize. In his mind, the child may imagine something that has not happened and its fears will be reinforced. So the point is to really tell the child the truth. In this respect many aspects depend on the age of the child and on the inner attitude and willingness of the adults to talk about it.
As psychologists, we don't want to reconstruct things, but we concern only with the facts, that is, for example, the mother or her body are no longer there. We try to point this out to the children in the present. We don't describe the situation to the child, but only say that she is no longer alive, she is dead.
The child should understand the process of life and death and with regard to the incident, we don't go to the place of action with the children, unless it is the child's explicit wish to talk about it.
We have gained experiences with people who belong to different denominations and try to cope with all of them and not to start any competition. There are also people of the community or of the church who visit us and participate in further education or training. We are telling everyone the same, irrespective of whether he is religious or not, in order that our psychological centre has been established with the aim of improving the well-being and health of people and further developing the psychological culture so that it is accepted.
We don't give instructions concerning how to do things, we just show a possible way. We do not compete with other possibilities that try to cope with life. We carefully try to introduce our psychological skills and knowledge.
I have come to an agreement with moderate religious representatives that the things they do and our work can complement one another. Radical or very religious representatives would not contact us at all, they feel satisfied or saved by their set of beliefs.
Often we had bad experiences with journalists. When the war began, they asked us about the addresses of affected and traumatized children, and then they invited those to the TV studio. We have been very opposed, but journalists got in touch with these children by dint of tricks and other organizations. We spent a lot of time pointing out the possible dangers to media representatives.
If you pull the children in front of a TV camera, you don't solve their problems, but you tear the kids apart, and later we have to deal with the consequences. That's why I don't agree.«

<<    >>