ON THE PATH OF ESTABLISHING A UNIFIED SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGICAL REHABILITATION OF VETERANS – COMBAT PARTICIPANTS IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The issues of rehabilitating and restoring the psychics and the body of the military personnel initially after combat activities becomes urgent practically directly after the hostilities have come to an end. Such an understanding of the issue of “psychological disinfection” has not been instantly established. For a certain reason there’s no reflection with regard to the Soviet post-war period, the historic experience to a certain extent when the vast majority of the male population of the former USSR had the experience of participating in the Second World war. It was those that have managed to return home alive, crippled by the traumatic combat stress had to face this issue alone, for due to the overwhelming ideological input to the psychological science there was no one who had both interest and ability to identify this problem, without even the further discussion of solving it.

At the beginning of October this year in Ukraine it has been officially announced to establish a system of rehabilitation for the veterans of combat activities. The initial matter at hand is psychological rehabilitation, and also the educational measures of social cohesiveness. Its creation is facilitated and implemented by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, The Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of healthcare and the Ministry of veterans of Ukraine. In accordance with recent data that have been published by the Ministry of Veteran affairs, the status of a participant of combat activities has been granted to more than 460 000 individuals. The vast majority of them need a complex and multilayer program of support. The introduction of the system of veterans of combat activities will grant the opportunity for the veterans to return from war not only in terms of their body but also in terms of their mind.

One of the most complex issues for Ukraine is the rehabilitation and readapting of combatants, plenty of whom happen to have the post-traumatic stress syndrome. The basic concept used by professionals towards the war veterans suffering from PTRS before the initial start of combat activities in the East of Ukraine was that it has been necessary to distract their attention from the traumatizing events that have caused PTRS, and by doing so assisting them to be normal, to adapt its way of behavior to the generally accepted norms. The practically comes down to the following that an individual who has received a psychological trauma is obliged to modify its behavior in such a way not to be differentiated from the overwhelming mass of citizens, that as a majority adhere to similar views in terms of what type of behavior is socially accepted and which is not. However, this sort of adaptation is unlikely to be useful to an individual who has been under extreme circumstances for a long period of time to regain inner solace and the joy of life. This kind of approach could deceive the veteran that in order to heal he is obliged to modify his behavior in order to become like “everybody else” and thus to stop act, think and feel in an original manner. The vast majority of combatants that are trying to adapt, and force themselves to “normal” behavior, experience the main difficulties due to the fact that there are offered as cure simply to erase the past, and thus to get rid not only of the ugly repulsive phantoms of war but also the lessons of nobility, honor and heroism. This is a path which does not lead to an integral personality, for it suggests to cure the implications of a decease and not its cause and therefore the aim and purpose of such a “treatment” is for the most part not the psychological health, but rather the psych prophylaxis of delinquent behavior. Therefore, the mentioned approach cannot lead to full fledge healing of the combatant.