Invasive Terror

A Ukrainian psychotherapist talks about life and work during wartime

Above: Kateryna and I at the annual Self psychology conference, October 2023.

The following is an edited version of an interview I conducted with my colleague and friend, Kateryna Bagan, a Ukrainian psychotherapist. The topic was life and therapy during wartime. The questions I put to Kateryna are condensed in italics below, her answers follow. A few of her comments have been italicized by me.

First, Kateryna introduces herself:

My name is Kateryna Bagan, and I’m almost 30 years old. Psychology has been my one and only field of study, and in November 2023, I completed all the necessary requirements to become a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with the Ukrainian Confederation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.

In 2022, I became acquainted with the International Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology (IAPSP) because of their support for Ukrainian therapists. I immediately felt welcomed, despite the differences in our experiences. It can be challenging [in some groups] to express political views or talk about sensitive events because of the fear of condemnation or misunderstanding. But I’ve never encountered that kind of reaction within the international community [IAPSP]. I also believe that I could have done more to make Ukraine's situation more visible there, but it turns out that people remember us anyway. And on those moments when it feels like we’ve been forgotten, I remind myself that trauma often makes us feel like others don’t care.

At one point Kateryna comments (eloquently) about what it has been like for me to ask her about the start of the Putin’s invasion, in February 2022. Also note her concern about her American friends under authoritarianism:

I have to admit—both to you and to myself—that speaking about the war, especially the first few months, is incredibly difficult. Even now, recalling the first days and weeks of the invasion stirs up overwhelming emotions. The phrase “the war has begun,” despite it being three years in, remains the most painful and tragic to me. I often suppress the intensity of these experiences—it seems like the only way to keep going. But this denial often leads to emotional numbness, a lack of motivation to think or create, and a deep internal silence. Lately, I’ve felt as though I’ve been in a kind of coma, overwhelmed by the emotional work of therapy and the terrifying events around me. The fear for my own life and the lives of my loved ones has become all-consuming. One of the most painful thoughts I’ve had recently is the possibility that the streets, homes, cities, and villages tied to my childhood and youth might be destroyed—surviving only in memory.

Sometimes, it’s incredibly difficult for me to communicate with the outside world. I used to think this was mainly a language issue, but now I realize that trauma itself can sever the ability to connect. It brings a fear that any interaction might burden others with my suffering. Still, I’m very grateful that you ask and care about what’s happening here, even as you’re also facing deeply troubling times. I’ve listened to some of my American colleagues speak about the current climate in the U.S., and their experiences reminded me of the Soviet Union—where voicing an opinion that didn’t align with the ruling party could land someone in a Siberian camp. [Or a Salvodoran one. – Ed.]

Right now it feels like chaos, and it’s hard to survive in it. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, everyone was so surprised—“how can there be war like this in the 21st century?” Somehow it seemed that the horrors of World War II should have been etched into our genetic memory. But sometimes, when trauma is turned into “propaganda” instead of being treated and rethought, even more horrifying things can happen.

And when I think about America—I suppose having an enemy from the outside is frightening, but perhaps having enemies from within is even more terrifying.

I wonder if she could say a bit more about turning trauma into propaganda.

In the Soviet Union—and in modern Russia—no attention was given to mourning. The horrors of World War II were transformed into an incredible victory. Even now no one talks about how many people were actually maimed, how many died, or how the Soviet Union truly fought. For example, the USSR accounted for 40% of all losses among the participating countries. These are staggering numbers. But instead of addressing the shortcomings within its own country, Russia upholds the myth of omnipotence and obsessively looks for external enemies again and again.

One of the key slogans for survivors of World War II was “never again,” expressing the desire and effort to prevent such catastrophes from happening in the future. Russia now mocks this idea, replacing it with the slogan, “we can do it again.” But this raises the question: what exactly do they want to repeat? What follows is the mass killing of civilians, torture, and war crimes—actions supposedly justified by alleged external threats.

Instead of reckoning with its own crimes, losses, trauma, and pain, Russia creates new ones.

I ask Kateryna what she remembers about the start of the invasion:

On February 24, 2022 (it feels like a lifetime ago), my family and I, along with close friends, had to leave Kyiv as Russian tanks were already approaching the outskirts of the city. Kyiv’ region occupied until early April 2022. My husband is from western Ukraine, and his grandmother had an apartment in one of the cities there (Ternopil). Initially, we stayed there, but with 11 of us crammed into a small space, we decided to move further west. Eventually, her apartment became a temporary stop for friends and acquaintances traveling from the east to the west. It was a time of shock and anxiety, as the world we knew had been turned upside down. Imagine your worst nightmare coming to life.

The story [of the apartment] turned out to be more complicated than I initially expected, likely because memories are strong but hard to put into words. My husband’s grandmother’s apartment wasn’t large, but it had the essentials: hot water and a gas stove for cooking. We stayed there for only two days before deciding to move on, as my husband's grandmother’s mobility had worsened, and the elevators were shut off due to air raids. We ended up settling near the border. I didn’t mind sleeping on the floor, as the most important thing was that we were together. We were a tight-knit group, making decisions together and supporting each other. There’s a saying in Ukraine, "It’s easier to beat the father in a group," meaning that when you're not alone, anything is possible.

I remember some moments from the journey. For instance, we spent 16 hours on a route that usually only takes 5 hours. Gas was scarce, and we had to wait in long lines. Near Ternopil [in West Ukraine], we saw a report that the airport would be bombed, though I can’t remember where we read that. It influenced our decision to take a detour, but one of the cars lost a wheel along the way. We were in the middle of a forest, surrounded by darkness and freezing temperatures, with no one in sight. If it weren’t for the group, I might have panicked. But we quickly changed the tire and kept moving. I also remember a night when we were headed to the next town. We were stuck in a long line of cars, and it was so dark that we couldn’t even tell where we were or if the line ever ended. We had to go through checks, with questions about weapons and our destination. I felt embarrassed, especially when they asked where we were from. We were from Kyiv, and we were fleeing—rationally, it was the right decision, but it came with many mixed emotions. A month later, I was on that same road again, heading to a different city, and I realized how beautiful that area was—picturesque mountains, streams, and old houses.

We were lucky to stay in two houses. The one where my family stayed had been vacant for a while, and the owners allowed us to live there as long as we paid the utility bills. My mother, brothers, and husband’s grandmother stayed there until mid-May. (Eventually, my friends and I moved to a larger city.) I am deeply grateful to those owners for their kindness.

How was it to do therapy work during this time?

Having a job was incredibly important to me. The full-scale invasion began on a Thursday, and I had a full schedule of patients that I had to cancel. We left Kyiv, and I kept wondering when I could reschedule those sessions and when we would finally reach a place where I could start working again. Looking back, it seems almost funny. The patients who were abroad during the invasion were probably the most stable. One patient even offered to pay for the sessions in advance so I would have funds. I declined, of course, but I now realize they helped keep me grounded. Their presence in our online sessions gave me some semblance of normalcy. I often wonder how I appeared to them at that time. How anxious did I look? Was I able to stay calm?

Reflecting on the experience and rereading the records, it was possible to notice some dynamics that unfolded in two months. The first few weeks felt like an "emergency room": patients were brought in a state of shock, confusion, hysterics, and the team performed the role of "first aid", defibrillation for the possibility of prolonging life, stabilization. It was possible to create a space for happening, not dissociation. When stabilization took place, it became possible to build deeper connections between group members, as if the group could turn from an emergency room into a shelter - a house in the mountains, in which foresters usually leave food, firewood and something else that will help spend the night on a cold night. Each session was connected with external events, the soldiers could not be separated from them and each was permeated with a reaction to the news. The task that had to be performed was to create a sufficiently good therapeutic environment with our patients, at the moment when they, like us, were immersed in a state of grief, confusion, and fear. Stitching of the past and the present happened slowly, the realization of the loss of the "world without war" gave new colors and required processing for both us and the group members.

After the first month, it became necessary to establish some kind of time frame, because surely there must be a limit to everything, except it became obvious that the war would not end so quickly. Our mental state during this time began to change to one more cautious. Some felt guilt and shame for the desire for peace on the one hand (which might sound un-patriotic), and on the other an envy at the idea of an outside world without air sirens, threats, and fear for life.

Bion had an idea related to this, that the nature of the enemy’s psychological attack is projected into the individual’s psyche not only to undermine their defensive and mental organization, but also to evoke specific fantasies that are destabilizing. These fantasies are usually rooted in early infantile situations of anxiety and push the victim into a passive role that benefits the attacker. One of the goals of such an attack is to distract from real events and overwhelm the person with fear and guilt, which destabilizes them and prevents effective coping with the external threat.

I ask her to describe the support group she ran at the start of the invasion.

During first two months my college and I conducted a support group twice a week for one hour. We recorded most of the sessions and later reviewed them. My colleague, living in Lviv, didn’t have to move, but I changed locations three times in a month. It wasn’t much, and we were always warm, had food, and were together. Still, when I had to adapt to a new place, I was more overwhelmed than my colleague seemed to be. She had more opportunity to lead the group, interpret, and offer support. But I found that the group became a valuable tool for my own understanding. As the participants shared their experiences, my colleague and I worked through them together, and it helped me see things more clearly. Another important aspect was the feeling of being useful. Doing something—anything—kept me from falling into destructive thoughts of shame, despair, and powerlessness. I was far from the explosions, and I had constant therapy, so I felt like I had a source of strength.

Being in the same situation as my patients allowed me to understand many things. However, it also made some moments harder to endure, and instead of offering empathetic understanding, I sometimes became emotionally detached and even frustrated with their experiences. For instance, one of my patients’ fathers joined the army voluntarily, just like mine did. I found it difficult to empathize with her anxiety because I was feeling the same fear myself. Sometimes, being in the same boat with others in grief can make things more complicated.

Could you say more about this patient and your struggle with empathy?

Regarding the patient and her father—during the first weeks of the invasion, everything from the “before the war” world was shattered. We were all trying to comprehend a new reality where the worst had already happened. It was overwhelming. I shut out any “unnecessary” fears that seemed hypothetical. One of those was the idea of losing my father—I couldn’t even allow myself to think about it. So when a patient brought in her fears about her own father, I found myself unable to help. I responded with cold logic rather than empathy. Our situations were so alike: where our fathers were, what they were doing, the battles around them. We both carried guilt and shame for choosing safety over resistance. I remember one of our conversations:

Patient: I’m terrified that I won’t survive it if my father dies. It would be the end of everything.

Me (calm, distant): It’s his choice. You’ll have to move forward.

Shared trauma can sometimes block empathy—it fills the internal space that empathy needs to occupy.

As for my husband—he works at a military factory. The job gives him a sense of purpose, and selfish as it may be, I’m deeply relieved that it also allows him to stay home.

I said I imagine that being in different locations led to different experiences and impacted relationships.

In our group [mentioned above], there were people from different regions of Ukraine—some were closer to the front line, and others were farther away. This difference in location triggered guilt in those who were in relative safety, as if they weren’t suffering enough, or weren’t “experiencing” the war as intensely. The greatest respect was given to those who were fighting with weapons or who had devoted all their efforts on the home front to helping others.

But guilt also helped prevent separation from one another, because something inside told us that we needed to remain a whole. At that time, it was crucial to stick together, to feel connected, because as we say in Ukraine, “гуртом і батька легше бити”—which means “together, even beating the father is easier.” In other words, we can achieve a lot if we are united. That’s actually what saved us, because no one expected Ukraine to hold out—and it did, precisely due to the activation of social cohesion.

A lot of the shame was rooted in the idea of betraying one’s country. As the saying goes: “rats are the first to flee a sinking ship.” I suppose that’s also a kind of internal safeguard for survival.

But those who left the country, after a while, felt as if they were abandoning those who stayed behind. No matter how logical that decision may have been, it still evoked guilt in those who left, and a sense of abandonment in those who remained.

Probably, the inability to fully process these different experiences, and the lack of containment, led to the loss of people. In the end, only those who stayed in Ukraine remained in the group.

I have heard there are or were tensions between those from eastern versus western Ukraine.

It reminds me of cases where [newly arrived] “migrant” refugees within a society face a lot of hostility from their own people. I don’t currently have an explanation for why this happens, and I even feel a sort of shame in bringing something so painful “outside the home” and writing about it to you. But the fact remains: many internally displaced people from the eastern regions experienced a lot of aggression from people in the western parts of our country.

Maybe it’s due to the different historical contexts—Ukrainians have been divided throughout history, which has always led to different experiences, and only in the last 30 years have they really had their own country. Or maybe it’s how fear or anxiety works—if they are fleeing, does that mean we will have to flee too?

A few years ago, I listened to a talk by a Ukrainian therapist on trauma, and one of his points was that Israeli society was not very welcoming to war-traumatized Jews—as if society tries to protect itself from traumatic experience. Perhaps something similar happened in Ukraine: people from the “less traumatized” regions may have, consciously or unconsciously, rejected those who arrived and brought trauma with them.

It sounds like Bion has helped you metabolize some of the unthinkable trauma and chaos.

Yes, I’ve been thinking about Bion’s essay on the “war of nerves,” where he described how the enemy aimed to destabilize civilian morale during World War II. Panic makes populations easier to manipulate, more susceptible to propaganda, more likely to turn on their leaders. I also recall an article by an Israeli therapist (I’m still trying to find her name), who wrote about the early 2000s and the difficulty of maintaining the therapeutic role in times of national crisis. She warned how tempting it becomes to abandon the position of therapist in favor of the role of the one who “knows better.” She stressed the importance of professional community—how vital it is not to face collective and personal pain alone. That idea has stayed with me and helped me remain present in the therapy chair. Later, I came across Vamik Volkan’s work on “chosen trauma,” and how it can reemerge throughout generations. Our struggle with Russia feels like an ancient and unending one. Sometimes I fear that it will never stop—that this endless fight for survival is part of what it means to be Ukrainian.

I want to say thank you once again, Darren, for your interest in this experience.