From September 28 to 30, 2024 in the Kyiv Museum of the Revolution of Dignity specialists of the Center conducted author's training for psychologists "Peculiarities of couple counseling of families of military personnel and veterans".
This is a significant event, because in Ukraine the deepening of the qualification of mental health specialists in the topic of helping married couples in the conditions of war took place for the first time.
The event was held within the framework of the project "Stable family - strong country" with the support of the International Foundation "Renaissance".
"The idea of creating such training has been discussed for several years, as it was important for us to combine theoretical knowledge, practical experience and understanding of the real challenges facing families today. During the first week of registration for training, almost 200 specialists from different parts of Ukraine responded. The first stream brought together psychologists from public organizations, communal institutions, veterans' spaces and active military psychologists," said the co-author of the training, the director of the YARMIZ center Syrytsia Marina.
During the training, the participants discussed the specifics of couples counseling and what a therapist should be like to make this process successful. The topics of secure attachment, challenges and needs faced by families were touched upon. Psychologists worked on situations that arise in the course of work, practiced counseling tools. They raised the issue of crisis situations, learned how to give advice in case of loss of communication between partners both in the literal sense and in the sense of relations.
Invited speaker Sofia Terlez, who is a clinical psychologist and couples family therapist, spoke about the method of emotionally focused therapy in which she works, and at the beginning of her lecture, which she gave online from another country, formulated a mission for the participants: "Our main task is to understand couples . We must keep our focus on a simple thought: closeness is important! Very often, couples who come to us and bring each other to be "groomed" and "adjusted" actually want to fight for intimacy. No matter how they criticize each other, they fight for love, fight to be understood, to be heard, to be important in each other's eyes.
In general, during all three days of the training, it was possible to create a comfortable space where everyone could ask questions to the lecturers and share their own experience.
"Our project has a specific focus - relationships. And actually the couple's relationship. Because right now we are all in an environment that is not just filled, it is shaped by challenges. And for couples, these challenges sometimes become insurmountable. And they have so many different contexts — distance, injuries, betrayals, loss of connection, fears, risks, changes in each of the partners, and a lot of despair. So we learned to understand each other, to strengthen existing ties and to form new ones. They learned to talk about vulnerability and deal with it. To discover courage in ourselves and in the couples with whom we are so close. To talk about love again, even in the midst of death and loss. I think we managed to take a step in this direction. And it is good to go in a very reliable and own team. So I thank everyone for the sense of sisterhood and consonance of values," said the co-author of the training, a psychologist Maria Oliynyk.
The extremely positive feedback from the group showed that Ukrainian society is in dire need of such events, so the organizers are already working on the possibilities of launching another stream.
