Psychoanalytic Work With Losses During the War: The Ukrainian Experience

This contribution discusses developments and changes in psychoanalytic practice under conditions of war in Ukraine. Clinical observations in Ukraine show that psychoanalytic work carried out under conditions of military violence may not be contained within the framework of predetermined symbolic constructions. Specifically, such psychoanalytic work appears to become less focused on mentalizing and imagining psychic elements, including thoughts, feelings, wishes, and memories, as is typical in nonwar psychoanalytic situations. In contrast, the experience of war is concerned with psychic states, which may have never been articulated. In this article, I identify them as unimagined or poorly imagined psychic phenomena. These intrasubjective developments are related to living with enormous losses during wartime, as well as facing an unknown future. Utilizing the works of Bion, Bollas, Green, and Lacan, I define the sense of the future, located within the psyche, as a capacity for futuristic thinking or for hope. This psychic hope contains wishes that seek realization as the representations of an Eros function. Maternal and paternal functions in the psyche are also seen as related to the capacity to imagine the future. These theoretical ideas are noted within the context of the profound challenges of working as a psychoanalyst under conditions of war.