IJSP Number 8, 2026

International Journal of Supervision in Psychotherapy, Number 8, 2026 Page | 95 SUPERVISION IN WARTIME UKRAINE: CULTIVATING RESILIENCE THROUGH TRAUMA-INFORMED CREATIVE EMBODIED APPROACHES (TICES) Paula GRECH France E-mail: paulagrechjefford@gmail.com Abstract: This paper analyses a series of supervision sessions supporting an individual and a group of Ukrainian therapists and psychologists via a voluntary online organisation known as PsyCrisis Ukraine. The supervision group met bi-monthly for just over a year. Our purpose, while highlighting supervision as a resourcing factor using creative embodied approaches to supervision, also emphasises the need to integrate a trauma resilience model (TRM) and a trauma-informed supervision model to help contain and work with aspects of vulnerability in the form of: stress, burnout and depression. As trauma continues to emerge as a result of the ongoing war, this article advocates increased self-care, emotional regulation support and a trauma-informed creative embodied supervision model (TICES). Key words: resilience, trauma, emotional regulation, embodiment, creativity 1 . INTRODUCTION This paper highlights the challenges confronted when holding supervision in wartime Ukraine. I used a method based on creative, embodied supervision, and maintained the fundamental pillars of supervision. However, the context of a country at war triggers moments of vulnerability in the process of developing resilience. Consequently, it is important to understand how we can best support the formative needs of supervision in this situation and this includes redefining our expectations. For example, what is resilience against the backdrop of war when dealing with adversity? I intend here to present an analysis of my work as a supervisor in three mediations, showing how cracks of vulnerability may appear while living through the actuality of war. In this context, I will offer paths of intervention when applying creative supervision methods. For those who have fled and for those who remain living with air strikes, electricity cuts and years of hardship and relocation, the need to support health-care providers remains a priority when working with military polytrauma and a country at war. Trauma, secondary trauma, anxiety and burnout, and chronic stress need to be handled with care but how we manage these stress factors in supervision will depend on adapting to the concept of resilience and factors that offer personal resourcing and basic survival strategies. Resilience can be understood as a multi-dimensional construct [1, 2, 3, 4]. In the context of a war,