THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSISTANCE IN POST-TRAUMATIC RECOVERY: EXISTENTIAL AND HYPNOTIC ASPECTS

Abstract

The article offers theoretical and practical guidelines for providing recovery assistance to people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by war or other situations of existential crisis. In this context, the phenomenon of narrowed consciousness is purposefully considered as a state in which a person has difficulties in relation to the future. This is not only an important psychological problem, but also the most serious challenge of Ukrainian reality. The article examines important concepts of existential research into this state, as well as concepts used in so-called “third-generation hypnosis.” It provides a theoretical justification for existential practice aimed at clarifying and understanding the characteristics that determine a person's worldview (awareness), and practical tools are proposed for psychological influence on the contextual and dynamic-content components of the subjective process of perception, awareness, and self-reorganization of a person who has had a traumatic experience. The interconnection between expanded consciousness and a person's ability to find new meanings in the situation of choosing their life perspective is substantiated. The psychological proximity of the philosophical position of existentialism and the idea of greater awareness, according to which human problems are part of the space created by consciousness or awareness, is described. The view of narrowing consciousness as a problem underlying all other problems is substantiated, and its solution is seen as the use of generative trance to expand presence in consciousness. The psychological features of modern generative trance practices are described, which give the client the opportunity to focus their attention on the “negative” zone of their state and, further, initiate an expanded experience in which the individual maximizes their own resources and approaches a new, more positive meaning of the whole situation. The main idea behind this application is that both the internal and external fields in which a person lives and cognizes themselves usually unconsciously influence them, and in this they represent a type of unconscious mind. Theoretical and applied illustrations are provided showing that generative trance is a subtle field of non-dual unity in which all elements of the stated problem can be integrated at the level of deep generative integrity, thereby enabling the emergence of new identities and new skills.