POST-TRAUMATIC GROWTH AND RESILIENT REINTEGRATION OF THE UKRAINIAN COMBATANTS

Abstract

The peculiarities of human behaviour in crisis situations are always in the focus of scholars; numerous empirical studies on individual aspects of stress, complex life situations, coping strategies, post-stress recovery have been done recently. However, despite wide variety of research in this field, many aspects remain insufficiently highlighted, in particular, effective methods of combatants’ psychological rehabilitation. This article studies the relationship between the severity of PTSD symptoms and post-traumatic growth and resiliency and their impact on the adaptation of the combatants participated in the hostilities at the East of Ukraine. The following research methods were applied: PCL-5, the questionnaire assessing the adaptation states - "OSADA" (S. Yakovenko), the Posttraumatic Growth Questionnaire (R. Tadeshi and L. Kalhaun, in the adaptation of M. Magomed-Eminova); Resilience Questionnaire (K. Connor, J. Davidson). The research results show that 31-45 year-old people are the best adapted, and the worst case is for people over 45 year old; there are correlation between adaptability and coping strategies, post-traumatic growth, resiliency, psychological hardiness and psychological well-being. The concept of resilient reintegration as a key aspect of adaptation of demobilized combatants is defined. The obtained data show that most of the combatants aged 31 to 45 are well-adapted (resiliently reintegrated, aware of the value of the experience gained in the war and use it in everyday peaceful life), the combatants younger than 30 years of age are characterized as having successful adaptation or quasi-adaptation (high psychological well-being is achieved due to coping strategies of avoidance and dissimulation); quasi-adaptation and disadaptation (unawareness on the positive impact of combat experience, lack of resources for productive functioning in a peaceful life, dissimulation and avoidance of traumatic memories) are characteristic to the combatants older than 45 years of age. It is proved that a person’s awareness on available means of assistance in difficult situations and available self-help skills support the sense of controllability over the situation and, consequently, help overcome more effectively the problems faced by the person in the difficult situation. &nbsp