War-Related Life-Making Landscapes: Ukrainian Context

Abstract

The full-scale military invasion has changed the lives of all Ukrainians forever. The necessity to understand how the traumatic experiences of the first months of the war affected people’s ability of life-making, how it changed this ability was the reason for conducting this study. In April–May 2022, 169 respondents wrote essays based on 4 questions about their experience. The sample consisted of 78% women, 22% men (age M = 43.2, SD = 12), 43.2% had personal experience of being under fire. Descriptive and interpretative analyses, multiple correspondence analyses, and comparative analyses were conducted to identify key variables, types of life-making landscapes, and their possible correlations. The landscape of service (27.8%), care (23.7%), and existential landscape (24.3%) were the most spread. More than half of respondents (54.4%) described the experience of losses of relationship, usual lifestyle, home or earnings. In addition, 16.6% mentioned feeling of guilt. The trajectories of the value-time dynamics that set the type of landscape during war differ from that revealed during the pandemic. The loss of relationships is mentioned most often and the most painful part of the guilt experience is the feeling of helplessness in relation to loved ones. A passive or active position in responding to events and multi-contextual or narrow individual perception of the situation turned out to be the most important for a respondent’s place in the psychological space of the studied variables. Limitations and perspectives are discussed.

Keywords:

• Ukrainian residents
• war-related narratives
• landscapes of life-making
• trauma
• experiences of losses

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Tytarenko Tetiana, Doctor of Science in General Psychology, Professor, Senior Researcher at the Social Psychology of Personality Laboratory, Institute for Social and Political Psychology of NAES, Kyiv, Ukraine. Full Member of Ukraine National Academy of Educational Sciences. Main directions of scientific activities: postclassical approaches to personal life-making, methods of modeling and forecasting the future, psychology of a life crisis, posttraumatic development, and the possibility of providing psychological assistance; psychological health, socio-psychological rehabilitation and personal support.

Vadym Vasiutynskyi is a Professor of Psychology, a Doctor of Science in Psychology (Doctor of Psychological Sciences), and a Chief Researcher of the Department of Mass and Communities Psychology in the Institute for Social and Political Psychology, National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine. He is also a Professor of Psychology Depts. at Lviv Ivan Franko National University and National University “Kyiv-Mohyla” Academy. The main directions of his scientific activities are: psychology of mass political consciousness; psychology of communities; psychology of poverty; psychology of power; psychology of gender; and consulting psychology.

Iryna Hubeladze, Doctor of Sciences in Social Psychology, is an Acting Deputy Director on Scientific Matter and Head of the Laboratory of Mass and Communities Psychology at Institute for Social and Political Psychology at the National Academy of Educational Sciences (NAES) of Ukraine. She is also a lecturer at Kyiv School of Economics. Her research interests focus on psychological wellbeing and loss, sense of ownership, migration and social identity.

Svitlana Chunikhina, Ph.D. in Psychology, is a Deputy Director on Methodical Matter at the Institute for Social and Political Psychology at the National Academy of Educational Sciences (NAES) of Ukraine. She is also the Head of the Ethics Committee at the National Psychological Association. Her research interests focus on political leadership, open-mindedness, congruency, and collective emotions.

Hanna Hromova, Ph.D. in Psychology, Researcher at the Social Psychology of Personality Laboratory, Institute for Social and Political Psychology of NAES in Kyiv, Ukraine. She is a lecturer and a supervisor at the International Institute of Postgraduate education (Kyiv) and works as a certified Consultant in EMDR-method with adults. Recent years she works with refugees and IDPs, victims of interpersonal violence and victims of war; affective and personality disorders. Her research interests focus on personality psychology: intolerance of uncertainty, post traumatic stress and growth, time perspective and personal life-making.