“The Way Home from the Battlefield”
Participation in combat military operations has imposed a visible impact on the course of mental activity and behavior of soldiers and officers. Combat stress, playing a positive role in maintaining the integrity of the body and the personality of a soldier in extreme situations of combat operations, serves as a cause for further disadaptation and psychotrauma of combatants.
Traumatic experience, which has been reflected in the psyche of a military veteran, keeps him in a state of an internal war. After returning to civilian life, the veteran is undergoing a new stress associated with adaptation. This secondary stress after returning home imposed on the initial stress obtained during the war. This becomes the basis for the internal mental and social disadaptation of a veteran in a society.
All this shows that there is a need for a special and organized period of military servicemen’s psyche transfer from wartime mode of operation to peacetime and gradual “gentle” inclusion of them in social relations. This is the period of their social and psychological rehabilitation. In fact, it is a crisis-free deactualization of the psychological resources, which are necessary to survive and be effective in combat operations but are not needed in the peacetime.
The trainings will include the following techniques: debriefing (end of mission), corporal therapy, massage, psychophysical training, body exercises, game activities, sports team competitions, psychological testing, interactive lectures, discussions, group work, individual consultations, etc.
The trainings will also focus on:
– Work with negative emotions and feelings;
– Work with current negative conditions: aggression, resentment, anxiety …;
– Work with fears. Overcoming the fear of death.
– Work with compulsive thoughts, flashbacks, sleep disorders, nightmares…
The general goal of the decompression training program is the preservation and restoration of physical and mental human potential.
The aims of the training are as follows:
– Psychological diagnosis of acute stress and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, screening procedure with the purpose of rendering assistance to those who primarily need it, support (following the example of NATO units – selection/picking the 12-15% of combatants requiring immediate rehabilitation measures);
– Stoppage/suspension of mechanisms of adaptation to the battle actions;
– Stress Management– calming down;
– Gradual readjustment to normal conditions: psychological gap, gap in/blocking the rhythm of activity, Environment gap/blocking;
– Prevention by identifying servicemen who have difficulties.
The program has repeatedly been tested in practice and showed its efficiency in the integration of veterans into civilian life and the use of new qualities in society.