Speaker A
You are interviewing children who were in Mariupol at that time, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
Psychotherapist Oleg Romanchuk discusses resilience, unity, and hope amid the war in Ukraine, sharing stories from Mariupol children and visions for a peaceful future.
Key Takeaways
- Children affected by war can show remarkable mental resilience supported by family love and connection.
- Shared cultural values and truth-seeking are essential for building unity and preventing future conflicts.
- Constructive conflict resolution and inclusion are critical skills for sustaining community strength.
- Post-war unity is fragile and requires conscious effort to avoid divisions and preserve freedom.
- Empathy and open dialogue help communities learn from diverse experiences and heal collectively.
What the video covers
- Oleg Romanchuk interviews children from Mariupol who endured the full-scale invasion, highlighting their surprising mental resilience.
- The discussion explores the importance of shared values such as truth, freedom, creativity, and love in building a common future.
- Romanchuk emphasizes the need for unity and warns against post-war conflicts that could undermine hard-won solidarity.
- The video introduces 'The Planet of People' book project, aiming to share messages and photos from community ambassadors.
- It stresses the importance of listening, inclusion, and constructive conflict resolution to strengthen communities.
- Romanchuk reflects on the reinterpretation of history and identity during wartime as a process of self-discovery and solidarity.
- The conversation highlights the role of rituals, mentorship, and shared experiences in fostering resilience and connection.
- The video touches on the challenges of overcoming divisions and the necessity of collective wisdom for future peace.
- There is a focus on empathy, understanding mistakes without judgment, and the continuous learning process in community building.
- Ultimately, the message centers on hope, dignity, and the human spirit's capacity to endure and unite despite adversity.
Chapters
- 00:00Interview with Mariupol Children and Mental Resilience
- 13:57National Identity and Shared Values in Wartime
- 16:19Personal Reflections and Family Memories
- 18:34Community Challenges and Conflict Resolution
- 20:27The Planet of People Book Project and Community Support
- 23:08Learning Inclusion and Building Constructive Dialogue
- 25:07The Role of Rituals, Mentorship, and Shared Experiences
- 28:47Hope, Dignity, and the Future of Ukrainian Unity
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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You understand that they have gone through terrible things. And you examine this child; she has no disorders.
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Mental health. Sometimes this makes me, you know, just speechless. I ask, "What memories do you have?" And the child says, "Beautiful." I think she, you know, something is off.
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She says, "I was with my parents." My mom hugged me to her heart. She sang me songs.
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My dad had a feeling that he wanted to tell me everything he knows that is the most beautiful in the world.
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"And we sat in that basement in the dark." But she says, "I've never in my life felt this way before." "There was no light and warmth."
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He called me like that, you know, and he said something. I spoke, I heard him.
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But he started to hear the same thing at some point. History. You know, my relatives from Western Ukraine.
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I won't say that he transformed, you know, that there... Honestly, I don't know, our relationships weren't continuing any.
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But, obviously, this is a very categorical example. But I think that if we want to have a common future, in which we won't lead wars one with another, and in which there is a common truth and it is the right to have one's own opinion, but to seek this
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truth, and there is love, in which our children won't be enemies among themselves, even if they can be that.
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And there is, and there is knowledge, that if you do something wrong, someone will confront you for it, but not necessarily, well, I won't talk about corruption or crime, not retaliating.
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That's what I think, when we look at this future. Our values are truth, our values are freedom, our values are creativity, our values are perception, our values, I think we know them, because they are in our culture, in our songs.
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This is what deeply resonates with us, our land. And I think these are the suzerains that we need to throw away together.
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And in wartime, my mind is filled, we all have a lot to look at the sky, we all are reinterpreting history, we are reinterpreting the future, we are reinterpreting who we are.
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And that is why we do not try to know, you know, these national ideas, they are born in different things, but I think we are going to the common sign, because we are trying to say who we are.
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We are free, we are dignified, we are solidary, we are people of hope, we are people of solidarity.
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I think, in the end, it forms us these suzerains. Our values, which I hope, will be for all of us.
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Give a sense of what it will be like when we are like this, and to get to this we can already be like this, but to get to this is a long road.
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There are no illusions here. This is the best way to create a space, in which there will be all the ingredients and in which we will not waste energy on...
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Well, on conflicts that ruin, on politics that tear apart, on all things that can so easily destroy everything and ruin it. But we do not once, there is no once with the evidence of this.
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And I think this is also our common biggest fear, when the war ends, they will start choosing, still something, and all will start to quarrel.
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And all this work on our unity and on our freedom can be so easily destroyed. I now propose to briefly interrupt, because we have an idea for a gift for participants and participants of the community The Ukrainians media,
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These are the people who are our ambassadors and ambassadors. You probably turned your attention to what is on our table; there lies a huge book, which is called "The Planet of People." We want all the guests who will appear
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in our studio to leave for the viewers and the viewers some message, responding to some important question.
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But so that this is not just text, to this book we will include their photographs.
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And at the end of the season, by the way, we will release the book among those who just happen to be sent in the description to this video and become an ambassador or an ambassador The Ukrainians.
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Mr. Olezh, smile! Yes, smile! I hope I will succeed. Get out. You have to be as in the cinema, as if you are going to take this.
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For that, to write something there. It is manifesting there. Is it manifesting there or have we missed something?
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It is manifesting. It's interesting when it manifests like that. From afar and only at the beginning, that's how it is.
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I feel that I see my grandfather. Do you know what you see? It's like a genetic contour of your face, that's what it is.
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In me, there is such a feeling that my grandfather Mikola is looking at me, and then I look, no, it's me.
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Oh. That's so interesting. Yes. It's interesting because you didn't say that I was there.
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It's similar to the one from the past, but also from afar. Show me the garden.
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So what, I need to write something down, right? Very beautiful, yes. We have already talked about that "Planet of People" is this support
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from The Ukrainians media, and we want that this book in a single example has also become support for people who are surviving in the ruins, at the beginning, on the very day.
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I think you should write such people. And to read this will only hinder our registration at the end of the season.
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Even we will not be editing reading. Except for the lines of the service, not the service, there is also others: to be set up tables, to be set up tables; I was sitting in the bomb shelter in Kharkiv, and I
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was sitting in the bomb shelter in Kyiv; I was evacuated with children, and I am experiencing all this here.
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Those conflicts, they are already there, such an impression, that we gave ourselves a moratorium, which all the same partially is violated, but we accepted it, common domicile, that we argue after the end of the war.
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But what can they lead to? And also the question, how, how to avoid them in the future?
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How to avoid a disaster that could be entirely possible. Real? I think that when we listen to different people, we can then share our experiences.
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And sometimes we even know how to someone, someone went through great trials in Kharkiv.
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But a person from Kharkiv can find out that in Holland, another person also experienced great difficulties.
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Trial. And what was she fighting for there too? Ukraine, and that it was also threatened there.
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Do you know, the Russian neighbors brought... You know, there, and they threw something, you know, some kind of
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disgrace at the doorstep. And we can also know how difficult they were. The circumstances of that person's life, why they left?
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I am not saying, I am not idealizing. Sometimes people make mistakes. But these are their mistakes for which they have to, you know, to inform and respond.
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But we should not judge one another, we should listen to each other one another, we should, we should understand one another, we should also be able to request the selection of one from another, because we have done something wrong.
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We need to have the same - the same approach to problem-solving one another. Yes.
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To us, I think, it is very important to build community, also to be able to clarify conflicts in a constructive way.
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This is one of the most important skills. But when we can resolve conflicts in a constructive way, it leaves us a chance for restoring relationships and even for strengthening them.
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When we are currently attacking, we are judging, we are ruining and then we are starting all these problems, distancing and so on.
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We need to really accumulate wisdom, wisdom in the context of relationships and in the context of community.
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You indicate how many times you have used the word "inclusion," but to include, you need to learn.
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Yes. And learning is a process. You are in the dark, you are in the middle.
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You can say that we have already started this learning, talking, listening, conducting dialogue? Absolutely.
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These are the things we actually learn from childhood. Right? And we simply, I would say so, we need to be more aware that we are more aware of this learning.
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And it is important for us to understand that this is not a science of complex thi
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There needs to be a desire and there needs to be a good example, and there needs to be an environment that supports it.
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I will provide such a warm, supportive environment for me. Example. Our previous rector and president of the Catholic University, Vladik Boris Gudzak speaks in front of the freshmen and says to them: "I want, that during the time of studying at the university you learn
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to use two words. If you learn to use these two words, I will be very proud that our university is not inferior in this world.
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The word is to speak and the word is to choose." I deeply turned to this because the student comes to learn the foreign languages, journalism, there, I do not know, psychology, theology, whatever else.
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But first we need to learn to be human and build relationships. And for this we need to learn to speak the dialect, learn to speak the dialect, choose.
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So, this is a very important science. And when there is this space, in which we are playing, We do not tolerate anything else, for example, condemnation, there, you know, what kind of layering there is, and we do not tolerate this.
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We say: "Stop, I will not participate in this conversation, brother." This is something we should not justify unreasonable, surrounding the face and so on.
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Then we create a new culture, and the culture cultivates certain qualities. It cultivates certain qualities, certain qualities, and we need to create this culture.
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And this culture was in us, but it was also so polluted by the entire previous era and the Soviet Union, which sowed distrust, which ruined freedom, close relationships, because this was a threat to totalitarian unity and the ability to control people.
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Often you can feel that Russia has come with war, not only, not just the sticks of the earth, or the sticks of people, but how, their own, to destroy.
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This culture, this way and style of life, which is inherent to Ukrainians and how we were taught, and, for more than thirty years of independence.
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Thank you and choose. You need to remember these two words and learn to use them.
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We are talking today about intimacy, and we have already touched on these two extremes: autonomy and dependence in intimacy.
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You, as a child psychiatrist, psychotherapist, psychologist, will say how dependence affects a person in intimacy and dependence on autonomy?
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I would first highlight that dependence on autonomy is different, because there is a dependence that is very healing, because it leads to the fact that you are in autonomy with yourself.
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You are, you are becoming more intimate, so that you can feel yourself more deeply.
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For example, for religious people, dependence is being with God. You can be lonely, but when you love, you feel the connection in the heart of all people, you do not feel loneliness.
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Yes loneliness. This turned me to Ihor Kozlovskyi, in his memories about how he was connected.
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He says: "I never felt loneliness in the cell, where I was not, I never felt loneliness.
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My heart was filled with those people, whom I love, and before whom I am also a guardian of their love." So loneliness is not a problem.
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The problem is the feeling of loneliness, of separation. And the teacher says that this feeling of loneliness, which, to the thing, in the world has an undeniable tendency to increase, it is very toxic for our health.
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It is related to the increasing risk of psychological disorders and cardiovascular diseases, there, the whole range.
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It affects the functioning of the immune system and the nervous system, and so on. This is the order no one says: "I am a doctor." Is this another science?
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No, not just that. That is why our body and our psyche feel it. We are born to be in a clan, in a family, in a clan, even better in a clan, because the thinkers-collectors, they did not live in families, they lived in groups of families,
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which were clans. This gives us a sense of belonging. This gives us ties that form our psychological stability, for example.
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But psychological stability is also a physical health. If you have this sense of belonging, then your body can have, you know, a reflection.
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When you reflect, it includes a parasympathetic system. Systems work that respond, you know there, to the goal and so on, and so on.
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And this is very much known. This can be very easy to investigate about what the feeling of self-identity is more insecure, for example, than the risk of infarkts, than the tytunopalinia.
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Known risk. Known risk that affects many, on many diseases. The nature of human relationships is the main factor of stability, the main factor of stability.
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For example, if you look at the research of stability of children, where we do not look at it, in any region of the earthly sphere, in all research of stability of children correlates with the closeness of their with close relatives.
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This is universal. I have never been turned back during the war. Interviewing children who were in Mariupol then, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
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You understand that they have experienced terrible things. You know, the terrible exposure to all things of war.
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And you are tormenting this child, she has no breakdowns of mental health. She has none.
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And you are asking. I told you this, you know, I am just simple. I ask: "What do you remember about your parents?" And the child says: "Guardians." I think she knows that this is not it.
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She says: "I was with my parents. My mother brought me to the heart. She sang me songs.
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My dad had such a feeling that he wanted to tell me everything he knew the best in the world.
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And we sat in that basement in the dark." But she says: "I had no light in my life yet it was not bright and warm." Thanks to this protective, you know, bomb shelter with human relationships, with human love, with hugs, with songs...
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I said: "I remember when we went out to the street, he turned my attention to the flowers of spring.
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And we talked about the dreams we would be making in the future and so on." Fathers are incredible...
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And the relationship in the family is incredible, incredible the factor of stability, and that is so important to us right now for our stability, for the overall well-being of the war and for the prevention of a future possible,
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in this place we kindly ask you, our dear viewers and viewers, to leave in the comments your thoughts on this, and who is your personality bombshell with human relationships?
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I really appreciate you for these examples and for this collaboration about bombshells with human relationships.
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I think this is not just a poetic turn, and it really describes how we support one another.
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And I emphasize, when you talked about stability, I have a thought about what Ukraine is.
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It is a weaker country, in which such an attack is possible. A tremendous enemy.
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Perhaps this is one of the reasons for our stability, such invisible horizontal relationships between us.
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In conditions when you stick to the grass, that factually you have a variant or it is you who is spreading, or you have to find the source of strength.
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And you have to seek it. And then we will build these relationships. This is the phenomenon that is called post-traumatic growth.
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But we know that people who experience trauma, they do not necessarily have to have PTSD.
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They do not necessarily can - they can become stronger, but stronger does not always mean trauma, and stronger means that they will be connected.
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So, they will be these connections. I think this is very important for us, a lot.
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Someone says that war is a very dark time, but in this dark time, perhaps, the stars shine brighter, because we need it so much, we need this light, we need to find it.
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That is why this little one knows that he wants to be a light for people.
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And we understand that light is simply love, about the fact that we are not strangers to each other, that we are one for one another and we support each other, and we share, and we feel this great beauty in this too.
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This is very paradoxical, that war is a terrible horror. But after the war, we will find the beauty of this light already, not just there in the future, when we already have people, when we love each other, and for us
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it is so important to preserve. For us, it is so important to preserve. I turned to this in this book, "The Flame".
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Junger describes how he was in Bosnia, in Sarajevo during the war. And there he describes how he arrived at some time, and someone tells him that it sums up over time, the war, and he could not understand, that people
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summing up. And then the taxi driver or someone explains: "We sum up not for the war, but for those who were the people we were then, the people we were then." And I think this is very, very important
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not to forget, because humanity is needed not only during the time of war, humanity is always needed.
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By the way, it is recommended to read the book "Plemya" by Junger. It explains to us very inclusively.
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It is recommended. I still have a question for you. From what we talk about, you, answering the question why the relationship is important, why the community is important, you mentioned this format of family.
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We can guess the trash more. Family and friends-- friends. Friends yes. And here we are with our editor to start we talked more about the trash. And traditionally, let's say, before the second invasion of Russia into Ukraine on
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all these hipster sites were considered good to say that you exit your own trash leads us to growth, makes us more successful and more effective.
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And I, as a person, who has a great experience of exit from my own trash, at which moment I realize that I don't want to exit.
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I feel so comfortable in my own trash, and I, unfortunately, cannot rationally explain why I want to exit it.
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You today, in 2025, what can you say about the picking between your own trash?
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I think it all depends on what we call trash. But I am like a little girl, who is in a limited worldview, which is a comfort zone, and we simply fill our eyes, so as not to see, what happens behind it, it is a connection,
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that it limits her. But when we are like a little girl, our home, home, in which there are open doors, to whichever guests come, and from which we also exit.
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We need our home. Yes, and when there is a lot of stress, we need more space, we need more feelings.
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But the little girl, she has such a negative connotation. This is the space of comfort, the space of comfort, without a peak.
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This place is of strength. And our home is, as you say, family, which friends, but also a team at work, right?
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This is how the mother feels, the mother feels the home at work, when you feel that your colleagues this is your space without a peak, this is also your friends, these are people, with whom the value is shared.
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It is also very important for us to transform culture of labor collectives. This is not just a place where we came to earn money and income, but this is also a space where each of us is important, where we are a support for one
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another. This is not just in times, in wartime. This is our philosophy. But in wartime we do this, for example, especially in the center "Kolo sim'yi", where I work.
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It is known that all our workers have time for different productions, different. In someone, the example is from relatives.
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Just sometimes it is important times, through which we go and so on. And we have shown, especially it is important to have such meetings for work.
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Not for training, not for solving any problems, how to set up, but just to put switches, just to connect in a team, just to divide.
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With stories, to sing songs, to embrace one of one and to mention together, just to connect what has changed?
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What change in the collective have you observed? I always felt the energy of these meetings in the end light, strength, inspiration, and hope too.
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But when you are not alone and when you hear the stories, for example, the history of our work tells about the brother of his man, who died in the war.
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It resonates when she tells the story about him, we know not just his name, we know what kind of a person he was.
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And from that, we all want to be the same kind of person. So, just as he would talk about others.
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And then someone in response to that history wants to share, for example, remembering about his grandfather, who was deported during the time of communism in Siberia.
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I know how it all happened, and I know how it happened to you he said that when it's hard, sing, because this song is power.
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And we listen to this history. We are tormented by something, so that you know, someone opened their screen and shows us something very nice from their ancestors.
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And we are turned away. And then someone says, let's save it. And she says what grandpa's favorite song was.
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And we all sing. And when we sing, we hear that grandpa sings with us, and we hear that we are a community of the dead, and the living, and the unborn.
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And we are strong today, we are very, very strong and very, very strong. And then everyone tries to put the enemy in their place, they simply reflect, they reflect.
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Here you could use a bulb like this membrane, which simply reflects. We have our collective memory of our stability, which constantly helps us to maintain that energy, the climate of values, love, light, strength, that holds us, that keeps us.
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And, of course, we learn, because someone says, I feel how important the sound is there, whether I walk there on walks, and we take ideas ourselves, how this stability is to be more visible.
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Yes yes. Not just colleagues. Yes, we have such a nice Ukrainian saying, that divided white is less than light, because we share it.
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That white is big, but it is easier for us to carry it. But the divided radius multiplies.
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The community is about sharing the radius, more, scarabs. It is like, again, it is a very simple metaphor, but each brings to this table some quality.
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my wife. So you know which one is yours. sendwich. And so someone brings, you know, their own sandwich, someone brings their own fish there, and you can try it all and you can be enriched by what we share.
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The Soviet Union, you know, all this ideology of trust building between people leads to that, that each in their corner has something of their own, you know, and God forbid, to share.
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So, you can take a picture, but don't share it. And there we don't trust each other.
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And the community teaches us: when we share, we all enrich ourselves, we all become richer, because we can not only taste this fish, but later get the recipe.
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Our children will eat some delicious sandwich. We have a greater potential in community for development, learning, creativity.
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And so it continues. Therefore, the community is such a wonder. I want, I want to highlight the differences between these two communities with the dialogues "to be divided" and "to be subordinated." And here, I continue to talk about the big and small
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communities, the bulbasaur. But can there be a community that is not whole, but such, that traumatizes?
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Can this bulbasaur be not mild, but toxic? Again, when we talk, when we, our own, we have in mind simply a group of people. A group of people can be a source of very negative things.
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Very. A community, which is this place of love, values, truth, that knows, according to the designated water...
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But a group of people can be completely, completely traumatizing. And some people call this group a community, but this does not make it a community.
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I will take an example. For example, we all say, there is a great value in groups of mutual support.
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There, there, in communities, for example, families of polyglots. This is a great-- a great resource for support.
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But from the fact that people have experienced mutual support loss, this does not necessarily mean that they will be retained together and this will be a place of support.
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They can wrap one another in hostility. They can, there, simply ventilate their, you know, images and so on.
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And I definitely feel from that, who says: "I was there last time, and I just broke down from this level of hostility, like emotion, the image on everyone.
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And I went, because I just can't, I can't be there," right? So there people, we don't become a community just because we have come together and share everything, that we have diminished together and divide everything, What is it.
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We can divide it in the same wise way, in a turbocharged way. And we can also divide from a certain position, right?
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Therefore, to become a community, the group needs, I would say so, well, wise planning.
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This is like a garden. She needs wise gardeners. And then this group of mutual support can become the most reliable source of resources.
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But we hear absolutely other stories: I found understanding, I found support, in less quality there are financial difficulties, for one day all from my group, you know, they decided this all and still, still from the top.
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Yes. And in groups of people we all have this experience of discussions, of unfairness, of exploitation.
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This deeply hurts. This can leave deep, deep wounds. Definitely From the psychologist. Such questions are tricky to answer, but what they should be are these red lamps that are lit, which indicate to you: from this community of value
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to drink. What you need to feel inside to understand — this is not what will be good for me?
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Where there is a weight on people. Where there is no freedom. Where there is judgment.
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Where everything revolves around... where people are, which creates, which wants to control everything and the collective where we can have something like: "We are one, we are the best." All the others, this is what you know, such-and-such, and...
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Indeed, these things. Thank you very much. So let's talk now about communities, How can they...
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We talked about conflicts in the community the community, the great Ukrainian community. And now about the communities that conflict with each other.
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And for me, of course, such the brightest example of the last three years can be...
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I recently heard from my acquaintance: "In our village, there are already no hooligans." So, and this is definitely about mobilization, mobilization resource.
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I suspect that this is a potential conflict between the village and the city. Not through any iconic things...
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What should we think about this? How should we think about this? Let's stop for a moment on this.
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I think, first of all, the issue of injustice is important. And with injustice, we need to fight.
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When we are faced with injustice, it is very Good feelings. So this is not something, something is not okay.
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And I think that we all have... Unity is impossible without truth, without truth, yes.
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But the truth is also justice. That's why I think that in this matter there is one-- one thing is very simple, that, possibly, there is some injustice, with which we need to fight.
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And this does not mean that somehow we have to keep silent about, you know, abuse, you know, which is some unjust processes of mobilization and so on.
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This is one thing. And then, maybe, people from the village feel that in the city they are supported.
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Conditionally, you know. But we have a common truth. We have a common edge, and we all are important.
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No one is less important, no one is more important. Therefore, when we are together, this will be a little bit.
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We are doing a protilezhnaya, protilezhnaya, protilezhnaya aspect. And there people conditionally from one community, they will be a little bit to the other, and they say: "Yes, we are with you, we support you, we will stand by you."
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And I think that this is a very important thing, that these communities are different, so that they are not isolated and so that they have a connection, have a connection, yes.
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This is very, very important. For example, we recently did in the UK such an initiative to honor the memory of the poles.
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This was very important for us, that all seven poles from our workers, students will not be on this event themselves.
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That we will all be together, that we will come all as a community, because this is our common memory, this is our common heroes.
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This is not something that we do there. And when I spoke, I also said that we want to hug you.
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But I also felt deeply, but we also need. your hugs, because you also have something to give us.
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You have strength, you have stories, you have love. And this, this connects us, yes.
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Otherwise, we may have the feeling that Here we are, and they don't understand us.
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And this way we do something together and then together. we plant trees, together we connect these...
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And it strengthens, it builds connections. So this is a question of justice, this is a question.
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of these bridges, this is a matter of communication. And this question is also about dialogue, dialogue to be heard.
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one another and speak the truth in this dialogue. And to speak the truth. It's not just about hearing it, but seeking the truth and taking action.
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then according to the truth together. Thank you very much. I have a very brief question on this topic.
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You remembered, yes, about the singing ritual of planting the tree, intertwined with the name.
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But right now we have a great all-Ukrainian ritual, which is carried out in some places with certain variations.
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But in general, in the ninth hour of the morning, we are supposed to stop whether on the drivers, or just stop, or in silence, and honor the moments of the military, civilian, those who suffered and perished for our freedom.
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What is the power of these rituals? How does it work? Ritual is a symbolic action that embodies a certain internal process in a person, a certain social process.
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If a ritual does not embody this internal process, it is dead, it is formal.
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But if it embodies this process, then, for example, it really allows you to see how to stop, how to stop on the car, how to stop pedestrians, and You realize that this is not just that easy to stop,
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but you see the faces of people, that's why this moment — this is memory, and memory — this is relationship.
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And this relationship, which lasts, and this matter, that we continue. This is one moment — this is a kind of its own setting for the day.
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And this reminder that we are one community. But each community — this is not just a community of the living, this is always, just like in Shevchenko: "and the dead, and the living, and the unborn".
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This community, which has to go through time from the past into the future. Therefore, in such an aspect, the ritual has great power.
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And for example, how we planted these trees on the hill, on the hill they remember in the Striy park.
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So we plant, but the symbol — this is evergreen trees, and they will grow.
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But the symbolism is the same, that the war, which ruins, The wave does not offend us and stops.
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Yes, we are fighting. And we need anger. But we are doing something vital. We plant trees, we plant trees, we create Ukraine.
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This ritual is born from the history of our student Oles Shcherba, who was in the position under Bakhmut.
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And he wrote to his beloved that he sees a cut-down orchard. And he says: "My dream is to see how it grows back." And we simply thought that this is a symbol, that the dream of all heroes is for Ukraine to be a garden,
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for it to bloom. Therefore, planting trees is not just about the fact that we plant trees, but also about the fact that we have hope.
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And pay attention: hope is action. This is what calls us to action. It's not just that we sit and, you know, hope.
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on something, and we are already acting today. We plant trees, after the trees we go to study.
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whether to work and so on. Therefore, rituals can be filled with depth. mentors who help us live and create life, and to be resilient.
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And we are doing this together again. I was at that moment, and you are walking, and here is some mom, I don't know her, but she ties this bird, and she says: "He says, my son was called," and names the name and
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surname. And you can see in her eyes that this is so important to her.
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And I say, "Tell me about your son." "Yes, I want to know." We are standing and talking, and I am listening.
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I am glad to know her son. Yes, I am glad. And she is also glad to know that someone, someone else will know her son, and someone will continue to tell the history, the history of the new.
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That is why the rituals are symbols. They invite us to the deed, which comes out beyond the limits of this symbolism, because it does not go, that every day we need to plant the sosnys, but every day we need to plant something that will be
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the flowering in Ukraine and create life I I think, we started talking at the beginning, there, talking about the clay, about the threads, with which we sew, that this could be the Shevchenko's "And there will be people", and here the question is which?
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I think that through such rituals we form our identity. I, it is said to me, that one of the most quotes of today's conversation will be the quote about the fact that community - is not only we today,
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it is we yesterday, and we tomorrow. Because when you talked about the songs, I somehow remembered, especially fresh, актуально, it sounded "Oh, in the light the red viburnum" after twenty.
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of the fourth of July. This song, which simply has been retranslated and has become ours.
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Not just the song of our ancestors, but it, it has become ours. But I will still thicken the clouds, there that I have to talk about the uncertainties and how to deal with them.
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What thin places in Ukrainian community you, as a professional, can see? And what to do to avoid a break in these thin places?
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I think that thin places - these are those, these are those lines, that divide people into different experiences.
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You have already mentioned this. Someone was at the front, someone was not mobilized, so, someone was behind the cordon, someone was, someone was in Ukraine.
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I think that thin places - this is the same as that, that historically is different: language, knowledge of history.
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their own and the feeling of identity. Thin places can also be in politics, in politics and in those places where there is potential conflict, for example, because you have to fight against the power that you choose and so on.
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And, of course, there, in the last place, it is water is the biggest uncertainty, because if you choose, politics can choose a strategy, to make your competitor so that he would be blackened.
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Yes. And I may absolutely not accept this. For us, if we want to be a community, then we must fight for the best ideas, and. Me it is really scary to remember, you know, those political shows, all these things, because this is what I would want,
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so that it would not be, so that it would not be, so that we did not allow this...
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Because this is the same narcissism that we see in Russia as Russian chauvinism. This spirit of narcissism, you know, superiority, Don't worry, he may die.
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We may not tolerate his kind of suspicion and say 'stop' to each, every, each place.
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And, of course, there are many sick people, who have remained unhealed since the Soviet times.
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For someone, corruption is okay. Why not earn, as there are opportunities? Why, as there is an unfair way of this, this, that...
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And I think, apparently, this is the place, which... They lure us with a bait.
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Well, it's simpler, you just pay and you have the right to drive. Well, you have to learn to do it, five times to repeat?
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We have already gotten used to it, huh. You still, stupid? Will you give it there.
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Well, there is an opportunity here. But here is the matter in that, that somehow we will rise.
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Dear truth, we will not come to that Maybunt, about how we die. And I think, it is so important that we together, this is like in medicine, everything starts with a diagnosis.
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So we said: no, this is a cancerous tumor, we will not live with it, we must remove it.
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Yosyp Slipyi said so harshly, and I think this is such an inclusiveness that we all came out of the USSR, but not all of us came out of the USSR.
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And I think this is not only about the USSR, this is about the whole humanity, about all these, all these, all these histories of the human spirit, when a person is unworthy, when you do not invade, do not survive.
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Here we can talk about many mental templates of social structure, which we so, so important to get out of them, get out of them and transform.
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And not only to overcome the darkness in the sense of the suicide, but the darkness that surrounds us.
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This is a trivial process. Trivial. Let's talk about triviality and conversation. I have a small experience working in the field of law.
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people. And in one of the other podcasts on The Ukrainians Media my acquaintance with the human rights activist said, that when she looks at the research on the status of human rights, it seems to her that all these basic
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rights are not being respected. Only two percent. And it seems to me very strange, when now, after the full-scale invasion, I imagine how far the struggle could go to roll back in the context of anti-Semitism, the status of women's rights, the status of other
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nations, people of other skin color, homophobia, the status of women, the status of others.
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the status of women, the status of others. the status of women, the status of others.
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Mizogyny misogyny misogyny. In your opinion, my recording is justified. And at the moment? Today, before such great challenges, before which we stand, is it not the moment?
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I am convinced that it is always time to see a person. It is always time to see a person.
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But those things you are talking about are not simple, about the qualities of those phenomena that kill sociology.
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But conditionally, if this person, for example, with cognitive disability, does not see and does not see a person in her, people, this is something with which we may struggle today, for we will not be people today, if we
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judge a person through disability and all other things you mentioned, and do not see in her a person.
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I think we are bright people. The word 'bright' implies that we see well. What we see in people is humanity, dignity.
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In every person, we consider each one. A person, that is already a human being.
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We do not need any future there, when we will all be human beings. This is about today's choice today to be, to be human rights, freedom, light and so on.
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And this is always on time. To see a person, to respect a person, to protect the dignity of a person.
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This is always on time. Thank you very much. Well, let's move on to the solution of the problems that have accumulated.
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Very often lately we can be found in brochures, and in public events, and in recordings on YouTube about how to connect with different new groups of people that have appeared among us for more than ten years.
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In particular, how to connect with veterans, how to communicate with people who have come to peace territory in the absence of how to communicate with those in whose PTSR, with those who have lost close ones, with those who have received disability.
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And all these are different methods. But you, as a psychologist, tell us, please, what is the common sign in this, in this communication?
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That's why we always forget the rules and approaches. But we can remember one secret that works in all situations.
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I think, probably, when to say one word, that for us, for example, this word is "to listen." But we think, what else to say?
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You know, and what is there? It's important. It's important what words we use. But I think we can understand another person, whom we want to listen to and we want Yes, I understand.
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That's why I think it's very, very important not to exit from such a position: "Aha, I know how to communicate with veterans, because I went through training, there I met someone who recognized me." When we think that we know, you know, we
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already then go along our own ideas. When we are in a position to be faster, such a calm...
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But you understand, every veteran - it's also a human being. Every family that experiences loss - it's also a human family, and it can be at different stages.
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And what today she needs to feel, tomorrow might be completely different. So, when we approach this position, such a calm: "I-That we don't always know what to say, but we want to listen and understand." That, as a rule, in many-many situations
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we find relevant words. But when we feel a person, we understand, we, ]} Note: The last line is incomplete due to the input provided. Please provide the complete line for accurate translation. If you have any further requests or need adjustments, feel free to ask!
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We, as you know, find it easier to say something in response. It's just that we have been taught that way.
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But if we don't see her, don't hear her, don't understand her, and we come with some ready-made templates, there...
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He can be completely, completely not there. I don't want to brag, but I recently thought to myself that the most important thing is when I communicate with my friends - whether by phone, or when we go to a coffee shop, that, in fact, to listen.
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I realized that I just need to shut up. You need to listen, because people need to be listened to.
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Okay, I want us to go beyond Ukrainians and think about global Ukrainians. Many of my colleagues say that we would be better off if Ukrainians in the world behaved like Ukrainians do, just like Jews in the world behave
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like Israelis. Adze is mixing everything here. But Israel is a great scarab, which they love, which they love, because of something.
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They work. I think we have a tremendous potential here. On the other hand, I feel that this is called the old diaspora creates conflicts with the so-called new diaspora, and the new one demands something to teach those who live in different countries
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for decades. What we need to do is to clarify which key, about what we talked to you, worked on a global level?
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We need to have dialogues at a global level regarding our values. We also need to include feedback in the connection.
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And, of course, well, without rosy glasses this night will not be so simple and easy.
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And there is no one, you know, a wonderful recipe, that is, what. ]} ``` Note: The last line is incomplete and ends with The rapids are all connected and will be there.
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But it is important for us to choose the direction of our path. If we have a unity and brotherhood, then we have a path on which we will continue to integrate more and more.
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But we have the same values and the desire to learn, to build relationships, to love one another, to value one another.
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As we move with this thing, we will go to... To greater integration. I think, my friend, it is very nice to have Shevchenko's message it is also his very famous two words: "Grow together, brotherhood." But "brotherhood" is about unity.
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We say we are brothers, right? So this is not just a relative person, but it is like a brother.
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This is still such that, you know, like blood relatives, they are usually. This is such a force of connection, brotherhood of the soul.
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We declare that this is a person, we declare it is a relative, the soul.
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The unity is about the kinship of the soul. When there is a father, there is unity, there is division, there is this openness, there is support.
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Therefore, the father says, it is his own, what is about that. But this is such an important preservation of Shevchenko, that we cannot be brothers, if we are not free.
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As we know, we are in the fullness of our ego, our narcissism, our disbelief.
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What Edith Eger said, when she left the concentration camp, she says: 'It turned out that the biggest connection is not the concentration camp, but this connection inside me, from my fears, the premonitions, of the past.' And I think this is the work that we need to do,
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not only to protect our independence and freedom externally, but also to internally shed transforming, changing the darkness, becoming truly free, bright people.
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Then we will have to be a little easier to be, because free people create community.
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Unfree people create totalitarian groups or not, whether they are dispersed In me constantly in the head from you, you will find different examples.
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You, by the way, in my opinion, no word Russians have not used. But I am told that it is own, that, that of this group is composed, composed to use the word community.
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Yes. I am told that there is a huge difference here. Okay, let's go from global to singular.
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I once heard a very interesting phrase, which, to me is told, worth saving a lot of active and activists.
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It plays in that, that to change the planet, starting from something small. For example, change your family or change yourself.
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And in the microcosms, yes, in the river it transforms the ringing hand. What is the most common?
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From what value to start? I think everyone should look around themselves. It seems to me, it is important for all of us to start our morning and finish our day, looking at the sky.
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This is a metaphor. It is very important for all of us to remember the most common.
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And it is very well registered. We have very... We understand that our strength is in the senses, in values.
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This is what is spirit, and this is what is spiritual, but this is the energy that gives the unwavering stability.
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Mr. Miroslav Marinkovich, you know, a dissident and an unwavering wise person. In him, there are such a number of distinctions about stability, I see in the end it says: "Stability is in our soul." And to recognize this spirit, to be united
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to the source of this spirit is very important. Therefore, I think we all need to look more often at our stars.
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And just as your phone charges in the charger, we need to live with these sources of value.
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Individually and collectively. Therefore, this is about unity. This is not just some abstract thing, this is how you start your day.
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This is about how you recognize that you will either do or not do today.
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This is about what decisions your organization makes, this is about knowing that these stars are just like you... That orientation, that compass, by which you live each day.
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Therefore, I think it is so important for us to be With values, to be with values, but they will be to reflect the unity and finish their day, reflecting how you and his life, and, according to these values, and, to go by them in
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the day. Therefore, I think this is about values. It is important for us to practice this.
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And in all our groups, where we are, we need to be mindful of what we do not forget, because of which we are here is a reason, which is the sense.
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You know, every organization has its conditional mission, vision, and often this is on the site, but we need to ensure that this is not on the site.
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We need to ensure that this is our own foundation, the foundation, of the energy that drives us.
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Therefore, maybe, first this is the value, this time the values. Secondly, I would say that we need to be mindful every day to the reflection of relationships, to the reflection of relationships.
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And again, in each of these can be very different. speech. Maybe from that, we just feel more free, respectfully, what we are watching, just glancing in the eyes of one another, when we say 'Good',' day, how are you?',' and not just 'Hello' and
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even do not notice one another, and this can be some small things or just a question of coffee and really listening to one another.
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Not just there to talk about what one wants, but to listen. Not just 'how are you?', but 'how are you really?',' And to be, to be one, that.
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But also to seek, where this signifies to seek space, where we create relationships, where we share.
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So, as I say, for example, in our center, that we allocate specific time just to divide, systems in the circle and to divide.
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And again, if this is about family, then we also understand that relationships in family, they do not just become like that.
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But you feed yourself every day, and what are you doing, to build this relationship?
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Right? What are you doing? What are you planning? So we need to set ourselves to this very strategically, very strategically I had once such a garden experience with a daughter and a son.
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We, each of them went hiking in the mountains, and this strategic decision was made here No, no one, no, the difference, in the pair it is on the way.
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One day there with the daughter we went to Parashka, the next day with the son to Borzhavskiy Krebets.
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But the essence is that this time is not just to go to the mountains, there it is not just to go to the top, but the main this is the difference to do it.
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You know, this time, this strategically find a place, where not only we have to go out, but for example the goal is to be different in this journey and in this journey.
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to talk, to share, to listen, to dream, to know one is better than one, because we can live under one gift and not know one another, and, not to feel one another.
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Therefore, we need to have this other component, the time of the relationship. Anthropologists call it 'the time of wealth', because they say that thinkers-gatherers, from the day they are, there, conditionally, gathering, collecting of roots.
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But they say in the evening, when they gather around the wealth, that they all have different conversations.
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And it interests me a lot that they have a different type of conversation. It is like this, as if to say, where to flow, where to find, there, about business, conditionally speaking And around the wealth they tell stories,
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around the wealth they sing, around the wealth they recall examples, around the wealth they tell how they mythologize and so on, and So far.
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And we need to feel the importance of this time around wealth, where we feel one, one.
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That's why this time is so divided. This is the second reason. And I think the third reason for unity, and this may sound strange, but unity will also be not only the time when we divide, listen, divide the white, but this time is a joy or a time
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of celebration. And from the point of view of psychological health, we understand, that it is very, very important to cultivate joy, because joy, hope, positive emotions, yes, they give our body very important signals.
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They let us know that everything is good right now, or that there is still something good.
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And when there is still something good, it shows in the research, that our body and psyche transition into another.
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Regime. Not in the regime, where there is a nebula, how to concentrate on it, how to think about it, but in the regime of reflection, integration, filling with resources, creativity, what to create, building relationships.
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Therefore, it is also very important for us, because the war can be very easy to capture and we can even say we can say: "I have no rights, well, to give birth or to dedicate, because there someone is on the front",
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but this is necessary both on the front and everywhere. This time of gratitude is very important for us, the time of hope, the time of joy.
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We had such a great experience in the UK, we traveled, we have such a summer school, and there is a group of different specialists from the UK who traveled in the summer, and I have already two years every summer at this summer school.
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This is the first time we traveled, those two years therefore we... Someone has taken the time, five years non-stop we sang.
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And it is so spontaneous. This was such a feeling that we were in a sprightly mood.
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But in that stress, you know, in this constant entrapment in war, all these responses to calls that we also consider such an important time when we can simply sing together, and we even don't need to talk at night.
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Songs tell everything, right? They convey the stars, they share us with emotions. But what is the essence of songs together?
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What we feel is also unity, and we live, and we rejoice, because many songs are life-affirming, such radiant, sometimes fiery songs it is also very important for us to cultivate time when we celebrate life together, when we feel together
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and express gratitude together as well. This gives us strength. And this time, a time of values, a time of sharing, a time of celebration.
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They then create unity, which is ready to embrace. Before working and collaborating, I have stability, and I have energy.
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Thank you very much! The last question: how would you be asked to explain why future projections and the survival of Ukraine lies in the collective and what would you respond?
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I once read a very nice book on psychotherapy from the South... from Eastern Germany.
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If it repeats, it means that the Berlin Wall and it wants to cross into Western Germany.
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And every time it touches the invisible membrane, which it emits. And I think that we, Ukrainians, often feel this feeling.
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We are told, here is Yushchenko's victory. You know, the revolution was completed by the transition.
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Everything, the doors to the future are open. Start dictating the name. Yanukovych is in the way.
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Don't eat, don't limit yourself to anything. But there is an invisible wall. And this membrane, this is such, you know, this is invisible wall.
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It is from our individual and collective mental models. And still to transition to that future or to that reality, about how we dream, we must open the portal.
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And you know, in all the tales, before which it opens the cave? Before the hero, who has a pure heart, bright heart or before a group of friends, who have pure hearts, bright hearts.
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And I think that we can really project and describe in that future, about what we dream of being together, together with people.
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The community of people, it forms this portal, through which we can enter this reality.
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It is not just a child's play, for a thousand years, and already today we are discussing the community of people on the planet, we have been talking with the psychotherapist, the director of the Institute of Mental Health of the Ukrainian Catholic University Oleg
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Romanchuk. My name is Volodymyr Behlov. See you soon. Take care and be well!
Topics:Ukraine warMariupol childrenpsychotherapyresilienceunitycommunity buildingconflict resolutionhopemental healthThe Ukrainians Media
![Zanjeerain Episode 02 [Eng Sub] 30th Apr 2026 | ft. Saj… — Transcript](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HWYmuRVH-t0/maxresdefault.jpg)
