Transformation of psychotherapeutic relationships during the war

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this essay, the author attempts to describe how the pressures of the crisis and the trauma created by the war in Ukraine have reshaped and transformed both her identity as a dynamic psychotherapist and her typical relationship with her patients. As both therapists and patients are grappling with their own safety and their contribution to the war effort, the therapeutic neutrality and anonymity the author had been trained to maintain are now making no sense. Through dramatic clinical vignettes illustrating these struggles, the author describes how certain feelings abound, guilt and shame for those who flee for the safety of other countries, and anger, envy and resentment for those who are left behind, and how these feelings are being played out in the therapeutic relationships. Ethical dilemma forces her to abandon her neutral stance with some patients and contribute to reshape her own sense of professional identity. In the end, through intense and anxious questioning, the search for human connection in the face of horrors seem to survive and support both patients and therapists.