Liberation Psychology in Ukraine: Mutual Aid and the Quest for Collective Freedom Part I
In this interview, mental health professionals Olena Koval, Netta Horak, and Florin Sebastian Piscoclu working with Mind Lifeline: Therapy For Ukraine program share their experiences working in war-torn Ukraine They describe the emotional toll of anger, grief, and chronic stress on individuals and communities. They discuss how Ukrainians channel their pain into volunteering and mutual aid, but also face burnout and a lack of support. The conversation highlights the importance of collective healing, the need to continue to validate refugees' struggles, and addressing self-blame, while emphasizing the need for caregivers to care for themselves amidst the ongoing crisis.
Interview conducted on March 7th, 2025. Interviewer is Jeff Jones with Liberation Psychotherapy.
Olena Koval
So, how did you know about our project?
Jeff Jones (Liberation Psychotherapy)
I kind of came across it. I've looked for other places that were dealing with war zones. I’ve been searching for mental health workers in Gaza and in Congo.
As someone deep in the US empire we don't know what's going to unfold in the US either.
Olena Koval
I was reading your questions before the meeting and what I thought is that the dynamic, the news changes so quickly, so fast. From today, my perspective, my vision of your questions and my answers would be a bit different than I would answer you a couple of weeks ago.
Jeff Jones (Liberation Psychotherapy)
I understand. If it helps, I do not support the (Russian) occupation. It's horrendous and in my opinion it’s fascist (empire building).
I'll start with: can you explain who you are? How long have you been working as therapists and what got you interested in working in the mental health field?
Netta Horak
I can start. Jeff, I'm sorry, my English is not perfect, maybe sometimes I need to ask some words from Olena.
I'm a medical doctor. We have a specialization in Ukrainian like medical psychology in medical universities. We have this specialization in post-Soviet countries. Not in Europe. I was in University in 2010. From that point I worked and still work with clients with psychiatric disorders and chronic somatic illnesses like oncology and rheumatoid arthritis and with neurological illnesses. Usually I work in a team with other doctors, psychiatrists, oncologists, etc.
I have specialization in CBT, group analysis, clinical hypnosis, neuropsychology, trauma, therapy and group therapy. It's already been 15 years of active practice and last year I got specialization in psychiatry. I don't have practice, but I plan to have practice in Poland. Now I work with Ukrainians, it's mostly online work. Last year I provided clinical supervision for psychologists and psychotherapists who work as volunteers in different organizations and for psychologists in schools which work with our children now during the war.
Jeff Jones (Liberation Psychotherapy)
Thank you.
Florin Sebastian Piscociu
I'm the president of Mind Life and NGO. I'm also a clinical psychologist, a researcher in neuroscience and a clinical neuropsychologist. All those things that we are doing inside the NGO are related to those fields. My background is not in mental health, mostly in the management part of the social spectrum. At some point in my life, I decided that is not something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted something different. Then I changed to this, which is closer to what I want to do for the rest of my life. So yes, in the middle of a transition.
Olena Koval
My background: psychology is my second master degree, the first computer science. It’s interesting how I came into mental health fields. I always felt that there are roots of people here and somewhere inside. I grew up in the Donbas area in Ukraine, in the 90s. It was hell even then. We had financial crises, all the population, and of course, there were so many cases of emotional abuse, physical— people worked so hard in their heavy industrial areas.
I felt that I needed to switch. I had my own crisis in life, and I wanted to deal with that somehow, and so I decided to do mental health degree. I'm more focused in
trauma therapy, but I'm more experienced in attachment trauma and emotional abuse. Currently I'm based in Massachusetts, Boston. I left Ukraine when the war started the first day and I was in Romania for two and a half years working with the Ukrainian refugees. I was displaced in a group in an individual format working for WHO. My practice is about nine, ten years.
Jeff Jones (Liberation Psychotherapy)
Thank you. The next question I have is: can you describe the most common mental health challenges you observe among individuals and communities living in the war zone in Ukraine? How do these challenges differ from non-conflict areas?
Olena Koval
I would describe that these challenges are transforming and dependent on the period of the war. In the beginning, of course, it was anger, disappointment, grief, the feeling of uprooting. All their hopes and everything was completely destroyed.
They are facing uncertainty and they adapted to things that I think nobody should adapt to. They're adapted to air alarms at night that keep them continuously awake and they need to bring their kids to schools and go to offices, although no one can guarantee that they will see their kids after they work.
Netta Horak
Now it's more about anger, aggression and normalizing it. Because of the war a lot of us can see it in different groups. There are higher levels of aggression and it's normal that we feel anger towards the enemy but we can't use it in battle like our warriors. But we still have this anger in society. I see it the most with school psychologists. They tell me about high levels of bullying in schools, more intense aggressive reactions in children and families. Also the long-term chronic stress- in normal life without war, some short stress or some short period of anxiety would be corrected by psychological interventions. Now during the war it's very intensive stress, high levels, for a long time and after the period of disadaptations it leads to psychiatric disorders. Now a lot of psychologists go to educational programs for clinical psychology for basics of psychiatry because they need this knowledge to work with clients and I think it will just progress with time.
Florin Sebastian Piscociu
I have a comparison to make because we experienced the war from Yugoslavia years ago which had commonalities with the war in Ukraine. Mostly it's about PTSD and acute stress symptoms. This is the most important mental challenge that you can observe in the war zone and near the war zone with refugees. Also anxiety, high levels of anxiety, clinical anxiety. Depression is a part of it and sleep disorders also. One that is very important is the somatic response of the body, the way the body responds to the problem. And what I think is the most important thing that we have to mention and look at is that in a normal societal situation, you can experience a traumatic event, but the support that you have and the way you can actively deal with that is different. Refugees don't have their support network anymore and that is increasingly damaging for them. This is why I think in those cases the response can be so dramatic and another thing is that their families are shattered, you don't have the community structure that you had until then. The disruption is so big, and it has so many implications that I think that we as a society that is near the conflict zone should look at this, and we should actively change it. This is a thing that can improve, the therapeutic response can improve their life. We need to change the perspective as a society to embrace refugees from around the world.
Jeff Jones (Liberation Psychotherapy)
Third question, and possibly isn't relevant, but I wanted to ask, how do you apply theories or principles of liberation theology? I wonder what it means to work with people dealing with the war.
What does their personal liberation look like for you?
Florin Sebastian Piscociu
There is a small contradiction here because we know that the DSM-5 that we are talking about is a system created based on symptoms. It avoids the biological factor, and sometimes it is not taken into consideration.
It's mostly used for a common language between psychologist and psychiatrist. But I believe that, if we are talking about this subject, we have to take into consideration that an individual's healing is not just about them, it's also about the community.
I think this is the most important factor from our perspective. By doing this kind of work, we want to transform the community, be more aware of what is going on and be more aware of social context. And why not changing political views? Until now, we didn't do a good job here. It's not a question of Romania, it's also a question of Europe and the U.S, and that's a thing that we can see with the naked eye. It is important to change that, because one factor over strategies is the self-blame, and if the community embraces it, that self-blame will not exist at that level that is becoming a problem for the political framework.
Netta Horak
It's a very painful area for refugees about the blame. They leave the country, they leave their friends, maybe even relatives, and it's very important for them to get this validation that it's okay to not want to be in the country where the war is. It's important for them also to hear that being a refugee is a traumatic experience. I took a course on refugee psychology. For refugees a conflict doesn't end when they flee from their country but they get more trauma in new countries. They don't know a language, they can't get medical help, they can't get a consultation from a doctor, they can't get their trauma therapy, they don't have friends, they don't have community, which can support them. It's very important for them to hear about it in session with psychologists and in my practice it's brought a lot of relief to hear about it.
Olena Koval
If I understand liberation psychology, it’s that you're identifying the biggest issue and you're trying to direct it in a more healthy way.
I was amazed by your personal story you wrote Jeff. When you identified anger and you put it in a healthy way to help others.
So, from the Ukraine perspective, it looks like a lot of people that are volunteering- let me be honest, I never expected us Ukrainians to volunteer as they are.- are doing that, like they’re constantly helping in hospitals, they are donating, providing free mental health support and stuff like that. Volunteering from kids to help elderly people, the kids are supporting the army by drawing postcards, and old ladies, they're sewing socks for the soldiers.
I would say they put their aggression towards the enemy in a healthy way to support their brothers, their husbands and all the community.
There’s a backside to this coin- they're burned out already. So, all these volunteering jobs, as we know, have to be balanced. It has to be balanced with their own support and their own restoring moments, but they're not used to taking care of themselves.
Jeff Jones (Liberation Psychotherapy)
What I'm hearing is there's mutual aid that's going on that helps with psychological liberation, but at the same time that burnout is a real thing. It's the old question of who takes care of the caretakers?
Part II will be released 03/28/2025