IJSP Number 6, 2024

122 and made an exception for me. Each weekly meeting was tense and unpredictable. I was very cautious not to re-traumatize anyone with any bright word or question. I don't remember when I was so attentive to the choice of words, intonations, and metaphors. I felt like I was on very thin ice. What I noticed was a sharp slowdown in the development of group dynamics and achieving the usual (pre-war) results. In one of my groups for psychologists, - and it was a frequent topic of supervisory request - psychologists suffered from the fact that the results they were used to achieving in sessions with clients were unattainable. We all felt like failures and unqualified for such work. Together we concluded that in such a state of shock, clients very quickly reveal the content of their past and current trauma. Under the pressure of such stress, clients lack the psychological strength to hold the trauma within themselves. At the same time, clients did not have the strength and resources to process the trauma and achieve healing or post-traumatic growth. So, all of us were in such a strange and unfamiliar state: we saw the trauma and could do very little about it. Now, as I describe this, it is obvious and logically predictable that no one can cope with psychological traumas under the stress of war. However, it is important to consider the speed at which all psychologists transitioned from a peaceful state to working in a war context. It was the speed and unexpectedness of these events that were unbearable and made the restructuring of work very difficult. Even simple changes at such a speed and under constant threat to life caused incredible difficulties. For example, we hardly discussed client cases. Firstly, because a lot of time was spent on our own emotional stabilization (both for psychologists and for me as a supervisor). In the article "Maintaining Resilience in the Face of War and Terrorism: Suggestions for Professionals," the authors also note "a greater need for Self-monitoring" and the necessity of developing and implementing additional Self-care Strategies [2]. Secondly, because the client's stories were very similar to the psychologists' own experiences and re-traumatized them. By the end of the first 10 weeks of professional support groups, it became clear that in wartime, work needs to focus on creating special wartime supervision and that many past techniques and approaches from peacetime do not work. 3. ADAPTATION (Summer 2022 – Winter 2023) Adaptation to the danger, chaos, and unpredictability of war began. First, it became clear that no developments in the field of PTSD were effective, as there was no post-trauma state. We were all in a state of acute military trauma. This realization became the starting point and main focus during the adaptation period