Mental health of Ukrainians liberated from Russian occupation: war-aggression impacts and restoring means

Mental health restoration is critically important, especially in war and constant socio-economic stress times. Military conflicts seriously affect the psychological state at the individual-collective level. Occupation, which is often accompanied by torture, abuse, forced isolation, is characterized, besides, by prolonged psycho-emotional exhaustion, which disrupts functioning of nervous/biophysiological systems and damages neural substrates that underlie the body somato-physiology and person’s behaviour. Chronic stress, persistent difficulties in occupation/post-occupation conditions can provoke even greater deterioration in mental health than the direct impact of war. 

Our study had two aims: assess the mental health state of Ukrainians, aged 6-87 (n=3779: 2065 females, 874 males, 840 children aged 6-17 from the de-occupied territories of the Kharkiv region, who lived in their settlements during Russian aggressors’ occupation); pick and compose a set of methods/techniques to restore normal mental state. All participants gave voluntary-informed consent.  

There were used valid standardized methods of visual psychodiagnostics (surveys and participant observation), also interview-method to collect clarifying information on the accompanying risk phenomena. Thus, this was a qualitative mixed-method study, conducted between September 2022 and September 2023 on the basis of Ukrainian Center for Psychological Assistance and Support «Indestructible Kharkiv».   

As established, the main causes worsening the psycho-emotional/mental health of Ukrainians under military occupation were: stress, anxiety and psycho-trauma; loss of loved ones; forced migration; feelings of grief, confusion and hopelessness; limited access to health care; constant flow of traumatic news from mass-media. The aforementioned factors stimulated the appearance of negative symptoms on psycho-behavioural and somatic-physiological levels, especially in participants survived sexual violence: 1 recurring memories, flashbacks, constant anxiety, sleep disturbances, feelings of alienation/isolation provoked by traumatic stress; 2) psychosomatic disorders stimulated muscle/heart pain, headache, digestive problems, increased fatigue, and skin diseases (psoriasis, eczema) associated with disruption of the immune system and nervous regulation; 3) constant fear, mistrust, suspiciousness, distrustful wariness, feelings of loneliness/isolation as a consequence of limited communication with the outside world (neighbours, relatives) during the occupation; 4) almost everyone who lived through the occupation experienced the «deferred life syndrome» (DLS), the so-called feeling of “lost time and of being “behind” the rest of his country; this syndrome is also named the «frozen life effect»: it is a psychological/mental state in which, due to external circumstances that a person perceives as temporary but limiting, he postpones the implementation of important life goals, so, a person is waiting for a better time anddemonstrates passivity, procrastination; 5) the hardest hit manifested children, women, refugees: children/teens have experienced palpitations, trembling, sweating, disturbed sleep, nightmares; depression; abnormal behaviour; persistent memories of traumatic events (flashbulb memories); anxiety/fear of repeating the stressful events; avoidance of places/people/situations associated with trauma; loss of interest in playing/learning – in anything that previously brought a joy. 

To overcome trauma and normalize mental health, investigators used trauma-therapy, cognitive-behavioural and bio-suggestive therapies; psychoeducation; various relaxation techniques and physical activity; for children – creative methods (art/play/fairy tale therapies), group therapy with peers and psychological assistance from the family. As a result, the applied means significantly improved the mental health of 73% of participants.

Prof. Andreyanna Ivanchenko, Ph.D. in Psychology, title of Doctor of Psychological Sciences, works at Kyiv M.P.Dragomanov National Pedagogical University and Kharkiv Institute “Interregional Academy of Personnel Management”. She has over 40 years of teaching Psychology and Foreign languages (Italian, English, Russian), published over 130 article, 50 abstracts at international conferences/congresses. In 2005 she became Reiki Master/Teacher of theoretic-practical self-rehabilitation bases according to ancient-Eastern psychological-philosophical tradition “Usui Reiki Ryoho”, taught by Italian and Japanese Reiki Masters/Teachers. Her research interests: Psychology of Creativity as a vital dynamic orientation, Victimology, Crisis-extreme Psychology, psychosomatics, stress-resistance, psycho-bioenergy, coping means, ancient-Oriental self-restoring arts, psycholinguistics, Sport/Political Psychology.