“Conventional methods do not work with the military,” says Andrii Omelchenko, Director of Atlant Psychological Support Centre

Andrii Omelchenko founded the Atlant psychological support center after the start of the all-out war: in the center, mobile groups are trained to provide psychological assistance to military personnel and victims of military actions throughout Ukraine. The Director of the Center spoke about how their work is set up during a briefing at Media Center Ukraine — Ukrinform.

Important figures:

• The Center has already trained over 300 experts to help others deal with loss and phobias as well as to treat and prevent PTSD.
• Mobile groups for psychological assistance are already working in six cities of Ukraine: Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Rivne, Chernivtsi, Sumy, and in the UK.
• Specialists and volunteers trained by the Center have already conducted hundreds of trips to military bases, hospitals and settlements for internally displaced persons.
• Thousands of successful consultations have been conducted, which helped people survive the horrors of war and saved them from psychological consequences.

“When we worked with ATO veterans, it was work to return fighters to civilian life. Now the situation is different. We work between rotations. Our task is not to return a fighter to civilian life. We need to leave him in the same state, with the experienced that he survived. Their value system completely changes: it is focused on survival, as opposed to civilian life. We need to leave it this way, but also help,” — Omelchenko said.

According to the Director of the Center, the results of their work show that soldiers’ cognitive abilities are much improved, they make fewer mistakes in tactical actions, and feel better. But such help has its own peculiarities.

“I talk about this a lot when civilian psychiatrists and psychologists come to me. Conventional methods do not work, even at the first step, when communication begins. But the first and most important thing is communication and trust, which must be gained when working with the military. When trust is gained, everything can be worked out,” — Omelchenko explained.

Read more: https://mediacenter.org.ua/news