The Self-Systems in the Military During Direct Russian Hostilities in Ukraine

ABSTRACT

The paper highlights the psychoanalytic approach to understanding the state of the Self-system among military personnel who were directly involved in combat operations as a result of the Russian Federation’s attack on Ukraine. Using the Narcissism Inventory, the author presents the results of an empirical study of 83 soldiers during their treatment and rehabilitation and provides three clinical case vignettes to illustrate and discuss these findings. The author discusses the revealed specifics of the Self-system functioning of the Ukrainian military in response to direct combat and physical injuries through a psychoanalytic lens.

KEYWORDS:

• Military psychology
• Narcissism
• psychoanalysis
• Russian invasion
• self
• war

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mykhaylo Pustovoyt

Mykhailo Pustovoit, D. Habil., M.D., is a Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist, head of the Department of Psychiatry, narcology, and Medical Psychology at Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University (Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine), a member of the Ukrainian Union of Psychotherapists, Ukrainian Association for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, and Ukrainian Confederation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies. He coordinates the work with the military at the “Prykarpattya Regional Clinical Center of Mental Health of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Council”.