Usage of logotherapy tools in the process of psychological support of combatants

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Usage of logotherapy tools in the process of psychological support of combatants

Moskalets Viktor Petrovich Doctor of Sciences in Psychology, Professor, Head at Department of General and Clinical Psychology, Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, Ivano-Frankivsk

Abstract

The study of the peculiarities of the usage of Viktor Frankl's logotherapy tools in the process of psychological support of combatants is an urgent challenge nowadays. The open aggression of the Russian Federation against our homeland has led to the involvement of a large number of citizens called up for mobilization in the ranks of the components of the defense sector of Ukraine. As a result, the level of psychological training of such fighters to be in extreme situations (especially captivity) is not too high, which can lead to significant violations of their mental health.

The article deals with the primary approaches of logotherapy, which were proposed by the founder of the Third Vienna School of Psychotherapy Viktor Frankl, and can be effectively applied by psychologists in providing psychological assistance to combatants, both on the front line and in the rear. A number of special psychological techniques for working with phobias, which were developed and tested in practice by representatives of the logotherapy school, are considered. Emphasis is placed on the role and place of religious faith in the process of providing psychological assistance using logotherapy.

It should be emphasised that logotherapy is not a universal psychotherapeutic strategy. It cannot be used absolutely in all cases of solving psychological problems. It is a specific type of therapy that is advisable to use to overcome noogenic neuroses. According to Victor Frankl's logotherapy, man is not only a product of numerous environmental factors, he/she is a creation of the spiritual. Human spirituality cannot be explained by something not spiritual; it cannot be reduced to something else. It has not predetermined yet it can be conditioned by something.

The prospect of further scientific research may be the study and generalization of the practical experience of psychologists in the use of logotherapy during the provision of psychological assistance to combatants in the combat zone.

Keywords: psychological support, combatants, logotherapy, mental health, psychologist, war, religious faith.

Москалець Віктор Петрович доктор психологічних наук, професор, завідувач кафедри загальної та клінічної психології, Прикарпатський національний університет імені Василя Стефаника, м. Івано-Франківськ

ЗАСТОСУВАННЯ ЛОГОТЕРАПЕВТИЧНОГО ІНСТРУМЕНТАРІЮ В ПРОЦЕСІ ПСИХОЛОГІЧНОГО СУПРОВОДУ КОМБАТАНТІВ

Анотація. Дослідження особливостей застосування засобів логотерапії Віктора Франкла у процесі психологічного супроводу комбатантів є актуальним викликом сьогодення. Оскільки відкрита агресія російської федерації проти нашої Батьківщини призвела до залучення великої кількості громадян призваних по мобілізації до лав складових сектору оборони України. Своєю чергою рівень психологічної підготовки таких бійців до перебування в екстремальних ситуаціях (особливо полоні), не надто високий, що може призвести до значних порушень їх психічного здоров'я.

У статті окреслено основні підходи логотерапії, які були запропоновані засновником «Третьої віденської школи психотерапії» Віктором Франклом, та можуть результативно застосовуватись психологами під час надання психологічної допомоги комбатантам, як на лінії фронту, так і в тилу. Розглянуто низку спеціальних психологічних технік для роботи з фобіями, що були розроблені та апробовані на практиці представниками логотерапевтичної школи. Акцентовано на роль і місце релігійної віри у процесі надання психологічної допомоги засобами логотерапії.

Зазначено, що логотерапія не є універсальною психотерапевтичною стратегією. Вона не може використовуватися абсолютно в усіх випадках розв'язання психологічних проблем. Це специфічний вид терапії який доцільно використовувати для подолання ноогенних неврозів. В логотерапії Віктора Франкла людина постає не лише продуктом багатьох зумовлених середовищем факторів, вона є творінням духовного. Духовність людини не можна пояснити чимось не духовним, не можна звести до чогось іншого. Вона може бути чимось зумовленою, але не детермінованою.

Перспективою подальших наукових розвідок може бути вивчення та узагальнення практичного досвіду психологів щодо застосування засобів логотерапії під час надання психологічної допомоги комбатантам у зоні ведення бойових дій.

Ключові слова: психологічний супровід, комбатанти, логотерапія, психічне здоров'я, психолог, бойові дії, релігійна віра.

Statement of the problem

Active hostilities on the territory of Ukraine, which affected all citizens of our state, have had an irreparable impact on their mental health. Therefore, today psychologists need to prepare to provide psychological assistance, both to the civilian population in general and to the combatants in particular. In any case, thousands of fighters pass through the crucible of hostilities, captivity and torture, and who after our victory will return to civilian life and their families, and the task of the state is to return them mentally healthy.

Analysis of recent research and publications

The issue of psychological support of the personality was actively investigated by foreign humanist researchers (A. Adler, A. Lengle, A. Maslov (or Maslow), K. Rogers, F. Frankl and others). Recently, in modern Ukrainian psychological science, the paradigm of psychological support for servicemen has become especially popular (S. Hanaba, N. Volynets, N. Zhyhailo, O. Mateiuk, V. Osdlo, Ye. Potapchuk and M. Savchyn, etc.). At the same time, the use of logotherapy tools by psychologists in the process of psychological support of combatants requires more detailed study.

The purpose of the article is a theoretical coverage of the possibilities for psychologists to use the means of logotherapy offered by V. Frankl during the process of psychological support of combatants.

Presentation of the main material

M. Savchyn understood psychological support as a central link in the chain of psychological assistance, which solves problems arising from traumatic events, and its important aspect is in life selfdetermination, in preparation for making choices in crises, self-disclosure and removal of subjective obstacles to development, in strengthening psychological health, as well as in assisting in a specific psycho-traumatic situation [1].

We are encouraged by the following interpretation of the concept of psychological support of combatants means a set of specific measures aimed at maintaining a high level of combat activity of servicemen; eliminating the negative impact of stressful conditions; preventing the occurrence and development of the negative group and individual mental phenomena [2, P. 94].

The issue of psychological support for combatants becomes important in connection with the involvement of a large number of mobilization resources, that is, citizens of Ukraine called up for mobilization, in the components of the security and defense sector. Unfortunately, the level of their psychological preparation for being in extreme situations (especially captivity) is not too high, which in turn can lead to significant violations of their mental health.

Military psychologists note that in the conditions of today's war, which is a combination of classical methods of military operations with guerrilla actions, terrorism, information and cyberwarfare and is aimed at achieving suddenness, interception of initiative and gaining a psychological advantage, considerable attention should be paid to increasing the level of stress resistance and adaptive capacity of servicemen, preserving and restoring their mental health [2, P. 90].

In this paper, we want to draw attention to the psychotherapeutic direction offered by the founder of the Third Vienna School of Psychotherapy V. Frankl like logotherapy. Logotherapy focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as man's search for that meaning. According to the basic postulate of logotherapy, this desire to find the meaning of life is the main motivational force of a person [3, P. 109]. psychological support combatants logotherapy

So, logotherapy is designed to make it easier to find the meaning of life, because it helps to realize the hidden meaning of human existence. In this context, logotherapy resembles psychoanalysis. However, it is not limited to the instinctive phenomena of the subconscious, it also cares about spiritual realities, such as the filling of existence with potential meaning, as well as the will for meaning. The task of logotherapy is to create a stable structure of meaning and responsibility from `thin ropes of broken life' [3, P. 10].

Sharing the views of S. Hanaba, we note that `logotherapy is not only a psychotherapeutic method of treating neuroses. It is a kind of worldview that helps a person to remain a person even in moments when it already seems that a person loses the last hopes in life when he/she sees no more meaning in his own existence' [4, P. 58].

While in Nazi concentration camps, V. Frankl tested his The Will to Sense theory in practice, which is described in detail in his work [3]. According to the author, The Will To Make Sense is the main driving force of personal development, according to his observations, the most chances of survival in the concentration camp were not those prisoners who were in good physical form, but those who had, as

V. Frankl himself called it, `stubbornness of spirit'. W. Frankl himself had three components of `stubbornness of spirit': he dreamed of meeting his wife again; he, as a psychologist, provided psychological assistance to other prisoners; and he imagined that having experienced a terrible but unique experience in the future, he would make his contribution to the development of psychological science in the concentration camp. On pieces of paper, he secretly took notes, and recorded his observations, emotional experience and experiences gained. All this together gave W.Frankl the spiritual (mental) power to survive even when he was physically on the verge of death.

After his release from the concentration camp, Frankl became the author of many psychology books and lived a long life. Even before the outbreak of World War II, V. Frankl began work on developing his direction in psychotherapy - logotherapy. At its core is the struggle against the sense of existential frustration. He was already practising the practical component of logotherapy in Nazi concentration camps, providing psychological assistance to his comrades. Concentration camps and `death camps' were the worst places on earth not only because of hunger, cold, dirt and disease not only because of constant torture, and mass killings of people. The main torture for prisoners was the indefinite duration of their isolation. Even in prison or colonies, prisoners, except convicts, have a clear and specific goal like to serve their fixed term of punishment and go free. Every day is full of meaning because every day it expires. In contrast, in Nazi camps, not only dystrophy and typhus, hard work and a gas chamber, killed the absence of the final term in captivity, and, accordingly, the absence of the purpose of further life. Why go on suffering if you don't know when it will end and if it will end at all? The answer to these questions is given by the first and the very main thesis of logotherapy: `Never depreciate your present', so living here and now can be extremely difficult, someone chooses to live memories of the past, and someone chooses not to live at all. However, a person always has his present, and in the present, according to V. Frankl there is always some sense, and if it seems that it does not make sense, then it still has, only it is necessary to find it. V. Frankl advises the eternal question of the meaning of life to address himself/herself. It is necessary to temporarily postpone the question of what I expect from life when it is not clear that tomorrow will be an unclear question that carries an even greater frustration. So instead of asking, `What do I expect from life?' V. Frankl suggests asking, `What does life expect from me?'. If a person understands what life expects of him, he will find the meaning of his/her existence. V. Frankl himself believed that every person has the meaning of existence (d 'кtre). While in the concentration camp, he believed that his meaning of existence (d 'кtre) was the following: to help other prisoners; preserve his unique camp experience for psychological science; to meet his wife again.

V. Frankl survived in a system that took individuality away from the individual, even depriving them of names, replacing them with camp numbers. But in the middle of this personally hated system, V. Frankl convinced his comrades that each personality is not unique only, but also not replaceable. Even without being a genius in some area, loved ones of us can do something that others cannot. Each person is not replaceable, so each person has his unique purpose and responsibility. Thus, you cannot give up on her by believing in the meaning of your life. That is, be yourself, help your neighbours, realize your degree of responsibility, understand how you are indispensable and determine your real responsibilities, if you do all this, you will understand what life expects from you, and return to it the meaning even in a concentration camp.

And the meaning lies in `the inner need to overcome her misfortune, to grow through it spiritually, to go contrary to her fate, if she refused them anything. The main thing is to see the goal in front of you. There is nothing more important to make a person overcome objective and subjective difficulties than the realization that there is a purpose in his/her life... And when this goal is set by the person himself and represents what could be called a mission, it makes its carrier indispensable and gives it uniqueness' [5].

Another thesis of V. Frankl is `You do not need to avoid your feelings.' Sometimes it is quite tempting to displace your negative experiences and abstract from them, to replace mental pain with deaf apathy. Therefore, V. Frankl notes that it is a real courage to fully experience and cry out for your negativity. According to his statements, it is necessary to have the courage not to give up your own emotions even when they are emotions with a `minus' sign, you can and should share your problems with the environment, they will feel that they are not alone and may also share the pain. V. Frankl emphasizes that everything can be taken away from a person, but it is not possible to take away from a person their experience, it is an inviolable capital and it has its value. In his stories, the psychologist recalled how before World War II he envied the scale of the spiritual experiences of the characters of classical literature, so he perceived his experiences in the concentration camp as an opportunity to rise to the level of literary heroes.

Next thesis: `You can't disassociate yourself from the beautiful!'. In his work, he describes the following case: `One evening, when we were already resting on the floor of the barracks, tortured to death, with bowls of soup in our hands, our fellow prisoner ran in and offered to look at the beautiful sunset. Standing on the outside, we saw ominous clouds ploughing in the east, and an entire sky, as if living from clouds that directly changed their shape and colours: from steel blue to bloody red. Our cheerless grey dugouts contrasted strikingly with this spectacle, and a shining sky was reflected in the marshy puddles. After a few minutes of moving silence, one prisoner told the other, “How beautiful this world could be!' [3, P. 55].

The human will to make sense can also lead to frustration, in which case logotherapy speaks of `existential frustration.' The term `existential' can be considered in three meanings: to define its existence, that is, a human-specific way of being; the meaning of existence; and the desire to find the meaning of its existence, that is, the so-called will to meaning.

Existential frustration can cause neuroses. For neuroses of this type, logotherapy uses the term `noogenic neurosis' in contrast to neuroses in the usual sense of the word, that is, psychogenic. Noogenic neurosis does not originate from the mental but from the `noological' (mental) dimension of human existence [3, P. 111].

In the logo-therapeutic school, their special psychological techniques for working with the following phobias: `paradoxical intentions' have been developed and tested in practice. To understand what is happening in the application of this technique, one should first consider a condition that is often inherent in neurotic individuals, the so-called anxiety prediction. This fear is characterized by the fact that it causes exactly what the client is afraid of. It is quite ironic that phobia leads to what we fear, just as excessive aspirations make it impossible to do what we passionately desire [3, P. 131]. So excessive aspiration, or `hyperintension', as it is called by V. Frankl, is especially common in cases of sexual neuroses.

`Paradoxical intentions' are based on the double fact that phobia causes what a person fears, and hyperintentions make it impossible to do what they want. According to this technique, a client with a phobia is offered at least a moment to get inside what he is afraid of. They can also be used for psychotherapy of sleep disorders. As noted by V. Frankl, the fear of insomnia leads to hyperintensity to fall asleep, which, in turn, prevents the patient from falling asleep. To overcome this phobia, the researcher advised patients not to try to sleep, but rather to do the opposite not to sleep for as long as possible. In other words, the hyperintention to fall asleep, which causes a disturbing anticipation that it will not be possible to do so, displaces the paradoxical intention not to fall asleep, which is soon followed by sleep' [3, P. 136].

One of the most surprising facts is that paradoxical intentions are effective regardless of the etiological basis of the case. This is confirmed by the quote of E. Weisskopf-Jelson: `Although traditional psychotherapy insists that therapeutic measures should be based on a certain etiology. It is possible that certain factors can cause neuroses in early childhood and other factors can free people from neurosis in adulthood' [6, P. 701].

As for the true causes of neuroses, apart from constitutional elements, somatic or mental nature, such feedback mechanisms as anxiety prediction appear to be the main pathogenic factor. This symptom causes a phobia, the phobia excites the symptom, and the symptom, in turn, enhances the phobia. A similar chain of events, however, can be observed in obsessive-compulsive cases where the client struggles with ideas that they are obsessed with. In this way, however, he/she feeds them because the pressure causes back pressure only. And again, the symptom is getting worse! As soon as the client stops fighting his obsession and instead tries to ridicule it, treating it with irony: paradoxical intentions are applied like the vicious circle is broken, the symptoms are weakened and eventually glow, on the other hand' [3, P. 137-138].

The view of V. Frankl on the place of religious faith in logotherapy is equally intriguing within the context of our study. Thus, the researcher notes that for speech therapy, both religious and non-religious existences are coexisting phenomena, in other words, speech therapy retains its neutrality for both. Religion is a phenomenon that affects the client personally, one phenomenon among many other phenomena. In logotherapy, it is accepted as a circumstance and not as a starting point [7, P. 261].

But while religion remains only a `circumstance' for the therapeutic process, this circumstance is very important for him/her. From an objective position as in logotherapy, `logos' is interpreted as `spirit', that is, meaning. As you know, for some time there was a `psychology without a soul'. We overcame it a long time ago, but today's psychology will not escape the reproach that it has left psychology without a spirit. This spiritless psychology is not only blind to the dignity of the individual but also blind to the values that constitute the correlates of personal existence: spiritless psychology is blind to logos [7, P. 294].

If logotherapy thus sees the phenomenon of faith not as a belief in God, but as a comprehensive belief in meaning, it is fully within the right to deal with this phenomenon. Logotherapy shares A. Einstein's belief that asking questions about the meaning of life already means being a believer.

Agreeing with the researchers [4; 8; 9; 10], we note that logotherapy is not a universal psychotherapeutic strategy. It cannot be used absolutely in all cases of solving psychological problems. It is a particular kind of therapy that is advisable to use to overcome noogenic neuroses. According to the logotherapy of V. Frankl, a man is not only a product of many environmental factors as well. He/she is the creation of the spiritual. Human spirituality cannot be explained by something not spiritual, it cannot be reduced to something else. It can be conditioned by something, but not deterministic.

Conclusions

The deepening of negative processes in Ukraine, which are determined by the war, should cause concern among specialists in various professional fields, for deep analysis and rethinking of the situation that has developed in society, and the formation of new knowledge about a person, about his adaptation in new conditions. Currently, the National Program of Psychological Health of Ukrainians project is being launched in Ukraine. Therefore, a wide variety of psychotherapy techniques should be covered in the theoretical training of psychologists who work with combatants. However, the theoretical knowledge of psychologists is insufficient. The soldiers and combatants must be prepared both physically and mentally for military-professional activities. And for that, you need to be aware of your own physical and mental health, about the individual capabilities of the body, about creating your self-regulation program, etc. Additionally, skilled professionals who can impart this knowledge to combatants.

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