“The Tree of My Life”: how psychological support groups work in Zakarpattia during the war

War will leave a mark in the lives of each of us. It brings blood, ruins and pain from losses. It spreads across the country, leaving terrible traces, painful and irreversible. There are too many stressful and traumatic events for the psyche to cope with at its own pace. At such times, each of us needs moral support. Sharing your emotions in unity with others – those who will understand you because they are going through something similar – is a very important thing. Therefore, the method of group therapy in modern psychology is extremely effective.

With the outbreak of war, the “Tree of My Life” charitable foundation started its work in Uzhgorod, Mukachevo, and Svaliava, providing psychological support to all those who need it in times of war. The founders of the foundation, Liubov Mykhailiuk and Ksenia Ternavska, created this project as a challenge. They knew that psychological support is the engine that will give strength to live and move on to volunteers, military families, the elderly, internally displaced persons, and morally exhausted citizens who are looking for solace in communication.

– From the point of view of psychology, when a person finds himself in a stressful situation, he can behave differently. “Personally, I have an attack,” says Liubov Mykhailiuk, head of the “Tree of My Life” charity foundation and co-founder of the psychological resource support project, “My attack manifests itself in trying to do something. Based on my experience of working in the project of psychological support for families of ATO participants since the first Russian invasion in 2014, I was ready to go to the territorial defense on February 24, but I was not accepted. So I decided to do what I know how to do – provide psychological support. That’s how my colleague Ksenia Teresa Tarnavska and I joined forces to found a project that later grew into the “Tree of My Life” charity foundation, whose main task was to provide psychological assistance to all those who might be morally burnt out in this difficult time. Because war is primarily stressful.

Currently, 16 specialists in three cities of Zakarpattia are working on this project.

These are psychologists of various specialties: symbolic dramatists, art therapists, Gestalt therapists, resource-oriented counselors, and body-oriented counselors. Counseling is conducted using the group therapy method, which has repeatedly proven its effectiveness.

Meetings are held in the most comfortable and safe conditions, during which participants help each other to look differently at certain issues of concern, to see the situation from the outside, to know and understand their true desires, to know their inner world, to analyze difficult moments in relationships with those who are close to them or in daily contact. All this helps to come to harmony with oneself, with one’s environment, and to restore one’s inner resource.

The principle of work is fundamentally different from individual psychotherapy. Here, people are grouped into groups of 5 to 12 people, and in this composition they meet 1-2 times a week. Meetings last from one hour to two hours, depending on the dynamics of the group, i.e., the emotional state of the group. The group is led by one or two specialists.

The project’s co-founder, an analytically oriented psychologist (symbolic dramatist) Ksenia Tarnavska, says that the center offers psychological support groups with different directions. One of them is a support group for families of military personnel. It is a place where people with similar experiences meet and share their feelings.

– A support group is primarily about talking through what a person is feeling. Simple communication between people united by a common problem is also important. At the same time, we inform them: how to communicate when my husband (or son or brother) is at the front line, what to talk about, how to behave, how to control themselves in these stressful situations, how to be a resource rear for them. We also consider the issue of restoring relationships after the return of a husband/wife, son/daughter; we get acquainted with the concepts of PTSD, concussion, etc.”, says Ksenia Tarnavska, ”Also, at the beginning of 2023, we will open a psychological support group on how to cope with the loss of a loved one during the war. Obviously, there will be 2 such psychological support groups, because the emotional experience of losing a loved one whom you managed to say goodbye to and bury is radically different from the emotions when a loved one goes missing.

Another interesting group is the Time for Yourself group, which is aimed at the 60+ community, where elderly people meet. They organize excursions, educational events, psychological film clubs, thematic meetings, and invite writers, doctors, financiers, and specialists in various fields to meet them.

Since many people are not ready to go for open psychological support right away, they can choose to work in art therapy, music therapy, body-oriented therapy, etc. There are also communication groups, behavioral groups, self-regulation classes, etc. That is, through this spectrum, you can also get the resources and support that everyone needs at this time. Therefore, the foundation offers different areas and for different age groups. We also work with children and their parents.

– Many of our guests are internally displaced persons from Odesa, Dnipro, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Kharkiv. They feel at home in our space. This feeling unites people,” the founders of the foundation say. ”Of course, we also involve them in socially useful activities. They collect jars for trench candles, participate in weaving nets, and so on. Here they learn the Ukrainian language, the culture of the Zakarpattia region and its dialect, participate in various workshops, dance and sing. After all, living does not mean forgetting about the war. We must continue to live, realizing that there is a war going on, and know what exactly I can do in this situation, how I can help. And for this, you need to have internal resources and strength. It’s like a car and fuel. Or a phone and a source of charge. Without them, no devices work. Similarly, a person must understand that they need to rest, eat, and take time for themselves. If the body is constantly doing one thing without a break, without rest, it will simply become exhausted. Therefore, the goal of our project is to give a person strength, a resource, so that the tree of his life, his roots, give him an impetus for new strength for development.

And we would like to wish the Tree of My Life Charitable Foundation to actively develop, grow, and bear good fruit.

Khrystyna Biklian

life.ko.net.ua