PSYCHOLOGICAL INJURIES AND DIFFICULTIES OF ADAPTATION AS SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of psychological changes in people who were forced to leave their homes and change their place of residence due to military action in Ukraine. The need for a study of the problem of psychological injury and the characteristics of relocatee adaptation is highlighted and justified. The empirical study results of the action level of the traumatic event severity and the adaptation state in the life spheres on internally displaced persons of different ages and genders are presented. Current social and political situation in our country has posed new challenges for its citizens to maintain psychological health in conditions of instability and social crises. Internally displaced persons have felt the effects of instability particularly acutely. These people had to leave their past life and build a future in new terms. It has affected their emotional and mental sphere in a negative way, which can lead to psychological injuries. There is no general typology of psychological injury in science yet. General representations can only be made from the analysis of the literature, namely, that injury negatively affects the individual, disrupts her relationships with others, leads to difficulties in her personal life, antisocial and deviant behavior. Inappropriate experience of psychological injury leads to deep disruptions in a personal realm of life. The problem of psychological injury is closely related to the problem of adaptation, which determines the recovery of the personality after traumatic events and the return of its functioning to normal life and activity. It is also associated with specific aspects, including the experience of relocation, difficulties in adaptation, traumatization of the mentality and personal sphere. New difficulties appeared in specialists who were not prepared to work with social and psychological problems of internally displaced persons due to the lack of theoretical and practical research on the impact of violent life changes and the consequences of relocation. All this led to the search for new effective or adaptation of existing methods and focuses area with relocatees by practical psychologists, counseling psychologists, psychotherapists, therapists who deal with psychological injury and other specialists in psychology. The analysis of theoretical and methodological sources on the researched problem revealed without only recognized concept of psychological support for internally displaced persons and the need to find out the level of their primary needs satisfaction at the preparation stage of psychological aid, which became the study purpose.