At DSUIA, systematic work continues to support and strengthen the mental health of students of the Center for Special Professional Training “Academy of Police”. University psychologists conducted a new training aimed at awareness of the life experience of participants as a coping resource and a source of personal growth.
A feature of the training was the combination of modern technologies with methods of logotherapy and narrative therapy. Externalization of life values, beliefs and aspirations was practiced, which were used for their reinterpretation through psychonarrative exercises. Work with metaphorical associative cards, built on the idea of the monomyth, aroused significant interest.
This helped the participants to structure their own experience of overcoming difficulties and to realize that everyone has individual internal resources.
The moderator of the training Vladyslav Bidnyak emphasized that the cross-cutting idea of the class was the metaphor: “Your life is a story that can help you every day.” This approach allows you to distance yourself from emotionally difficult circumstances, consider them in a broader context and form more objective conclusions. Turning to personal experience is one of the most stable coping resources, because it is based on real examples of overcoming difficulties, and not on abstract advice.
The participants noted that this format of work allowed them to look at familiar life situations in a new way and find new meanings that can be used every day as an internal resource for overcoming challenges.
The head of the psychological support department Serhii Vyshnevskyi emphasized that the ability to rely on one’s own experience as a resource becomes an important tool for the psychological resilience of a police officer in modern conditions.
The ability to reinterpret experienced difficulties and see valuable lessons in them will help the students maintain confidence, flexibility of thinking and emotional balance in professional activities in the long term.
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