On the air Army FM Volodymyr Konchyts, deputy commander for psychological support of the 210th separate assault regiment, and Olga Kuharuk, psychologist, author and program presenter of the Center for Readaptation and Rehabilitation “YARMIZ” spoke about the Center's activities.
Olga Kuharuk explained why the center is called “Yarmiz” and when it was founded.
— The name “Yarmiz” means to put in order, to arrange, to give, to bring order. And the center was founded 5 years ago. It began as, in fact, an initiative to help military personnel and veterans returning from the ATO. It has gone through its history, now it has broad areas of cooperation with very different areas, because somehow in the process of work it became clear that just the military, as a target audience, is not enough. The whole society must be involved, we talk about this a lot. In particular, there must be a focus on the family, as people who are fully involved. Family is always waiting, family is always those who provide support, but those who need support themselves. Therefore, now the main emphasis of the work is working with military personnel, veterans, families and family support. As well as working with people who are involved in contact with military personnel or veterans, with first-line support specialists. The first line of support is social workers, psychologists, people who provide consultations.
Olga Kuharuk explained how military personnel can get rid of their addictions.
— The issue of addictions is very broad, in the sense that addictions are different. There are behavioral addictions — for example, when we say that a person has some harmful behavior, for example, gambling addiction. There are chemical addictions — alcohol addiction, and addiction, for example, to certain medications or medical substances. It is much easier to get into an addiction than to get out of it. And when we talk about a recipe, the psychological community and society have been looking for this recipe for a very long time. And now the methods that exist are complex, they are systemic — this is psychological support, this is a change in lifestyle, if we are talking in a broader context, not in the context of the army.
Volodymyr Konchyts spoke about cooperation with the YARMIZ Center.
— We have been cooperating for 3 years now. Because training personnel is extremely important. Because we are fighting a large-scale war. We are undergoing a mass mobilization of personnel. And people who were once involved in the military sphere or were not involved at all need to be properly integrated into the army realities. People who 20 years ago could have graduated from a military department and 20 years later don't remember anything about it. Our task is to properly teach them what they need to do in their job duties and to teach them how to interact with personnel correctly so that the personnel can perform their assigned tasks. During mobilization, completely different people enter the Armed Forces, from top managers and directors to ordinary workers, loaders, farmers, IT specialists, accountants, and so on. This is a large number of people. Including people with addictions. If a person has lived to be 35-40 years old and has already established his behavioral stereotypes and uses regularly and systematically, then when he gets into the Armed Forces, he cannot immediately give it up. Because here, as Ms. Olya said, there is already a chemical dependence of the body. Our task is to conduct educational, preventive, psychological work with such people and help them get rid of such addictions.
Major Konchyts explained how managers can combat the addictions of their subordinates.
— Commanders need to work very closely with personnel, know who they are, what they are, where they came from, where they were born, married, the composition of their family, where they studied. You need to understand what category of people a soldier came from, what is inherent in him. Next, he monitors, working every day with his subordinates, with personnel, monitors his actions and changes in behavior. If a person is normal every day, and here he is irritated and in a bad mood, then something has happened to him. So, you just need to take him and talk to him first to find out what happened. And in the process of work, in the process of conversation, assume that the person has an addiction, that he is inclined to celebrate every holiday, relieve stress in this way.
Olga Kuharuk spoke about the cooperation of the YARMIZ Readaptation and Rehabilitation Center with the 210th Separate Assault Regiment.
— We have already implemented several projects together. Today's cooperation is taking place within the framework of the project "Resilience, Strength, Support", which is implemented with the support of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation. And, in particular, within the framework of this project we have the opportunity to conduct training, we have the opportunity to hold meetings. These are long meetings when we have several blocks, for example, a psychoeducational block and explanations about addictions, what they are, what to pay attention to, how to interact. There are also certain practical exercises when we learn how to conduct the conversations that Mr. Volodymyr spoke about, because accusations do not work on addicts. They have such a mechanism that the more they are accused, the faster they want to drink again. Therefore, there are certain techniques that increase the opportunity to be heard. And another very important block that we talked about, we started work on what problem can be solved, what problem we want to solve, we would like there to be no addiction in the army at all, but this is a pink dream. However, there are ways we can solve different problems, because addictions are different problems. One story is when a person has a chemical dependency, as Mr. Volodymyr said, the person comes as a ready-made client, and then it is about the safety of this person and the safety of the unit, because this can be a real danger created by this person. There is also a way of redirection. I know that Mr. Volodymyr and their psychologist, Ms. Yevgenia, have a redirection mechanism. People are sent for professional support, because some problems should be solved by professionals.
Volodymyr Konchyts explained what problems professional psychologists help military personnel solve.
— When we identify a soldier, a comrade who needs our help, we first work with him ourselves. We show, explain the consequences of his behavior, that he is not only compromising himself by using something, he is compromising his comrades who are next to him, he is compromising his relatives and friends who are waiting for him at home. If a soldier violates military discipline, he is deprived of his financial support, and moreover, he is also administratively liable, paying an administrative fine. Therefore, we prove responsibility further, the person has an understanding that this is wrong and that it is necessary to get out of it and remove his addiction, switching it to a healthy form. We send people to voluntary coding from use, after which we send them to a rehabilitation course, when all toxins are removed from the body through droppers, and the person returns with a fixed pattern that this is not allowed, this is bad. And doing physical exercises, breathing exercises, switching it to playing billiards or table tennis, or some physical exercises, gymnastics — that's good.
Olga Kuharuk explained how other military units can contact the YARMIS Center for cooperation.
— The contacts of the “YARMIZ” Center are on the Internet, we are on Facebook, we have website with a phone number, and I think we'd be happy to work with you, so please invite us in. We have enough specialists to work with people who need help.