Psychological Help for the Injured Servicemen Experiencing Phantom Pains

Khmiliar Oleh Fedorovych

doi:10.11648/j.ss.20200903.11

Abstract

The article deals with the peculiarities of the functioning of the servicemen’s psyche, who have lost their limbs as a result of combat injury and are experiencing phantom pain. It was found out that the mental state of a serviceman, who has suffered a traumatic limb amputation, can be identified with a state of acute grief. The peculiarities of psychological help for the injured servicemen, combatants, experiencing phantom pains, were investigated. The consequences of staying in extreme situations were described. The fact of amputation leads to the collapse of all life prospects of a serviceman, a reassessment of one's self, a significant decrease in the level of harassment and often to the loss of the meaning of life. The problems faced by the servicemen after returning from the zone of anti-terrorist operation were revealed. Post-amputation phantom pain was reported in 69% of left-sided and 31% of right-sided amputations. It was found out, that the patient, who is feeling the amputated limb, continues to consider it a complete organ, but with pain. Presence of pain intensifies the feeling, that the lost limb was not damaged. Phantom pain is localised in a special form of expression - a symbol and is irradiating. The main directions of psychotherapy in the work with servicemen were outlined, examples of methods of the mirror therapy for overcoming phantom pains were given.

Highlights

Staying in the zone of Anti-terrorist operation (ATO) is an extreme situation, when a person constantly experiences strong stress and overcomes it by means of his volitional efforts
The statistics show that every fifth serviceman, who has no physical damage, and every third injured and mutilated serviceman suffers from neuropsychiatric disorders
Our results enable us to assume, that the injured servicemen with limb amputations have a complicated nature of the origin of the phantom pains

Summary

Introduction

Staying in the zone of Anti-terrorist operation (ATO) is an extreme situation, when a person constantly experiences strong stress and overcomes it by means of his volitional efforts. The statistics show that every fifth serviceman, who has no physical damage, and every third injured and mutilated serviceman suffers from neuropsychiatric disorders. Other consequences, such as psychosomatic illness, start in a few months after returning to the normal life. According to the experts from the Military Medical Academy, the combatants (in comparison with healthy people) have a two to three times higher probability of diseases such as hypertension, gastritis, peptic ulcer of the stomach and duodenum [13]. They may experience weakness, dizziness, decreased ability to work, headaches, pain in the heart, sexual disorders, insomnia, phobias, fears, etc

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