CHANGING LIFE PERSPECTIVES AND STRATEGIES OF ATO PARTICIPANTS’ FAMILIES IN CRISIS SITUATIONS

Abstract

The fighting in Eastern Ukraine (the armed conflict in the Donbass Region of Ukraine (2014-present)), that is a real war today, has provoked a great number of problems in psychosocial adaptation of soldiers and today the issue of the military men's psychological rehabilitation is considered to be one of the most urgent and relevant problems. The paper aims to determine particularities of changing life prospects and strategies of ATO participants' families in crisis situations after the implementation of the designed trainings. The survey involved the carrying out of psychological support for couples (38 persons) who were receiving treatment in the rehabilitation center "Khyriv-Rent-Invest" Khyriv city. The empirical survey included projective techniques: drawings "Island of my dream" and "Our House". Psychological support involved individual counseling, group sessions with discussing life situations of both-men and their wives-and the art therapy. The carried out analysis has shown the peculiarities of life perspectives of ATO partici-pants' families. Thus, in crisis situations the way of solving everyday problems by men and women changes. These alterations concern building life perspectives, goals and means of their achieving. The psychological support of a couple in crisis situation involves family therapy, counseling, individual and group sessions. In this way life perspectives (recovery of time-spatial representations of the past, present and future) of men and women can be corrected. Psychological personality support of ATO participants' families in crisis situations is aimed at harmonization of their life perspectives and activation of self-identity process.