Lost peace, lost certainty

It is now almost a year since Putin and his government invaded the Ukraine. We live again, with all its horror, a war in Europe, just when we were beginning to emerge from a global pandemic.

Since the Second World War, in Europe we have lived, having built a safe, stable and prosperous world. A world in which human well-being and care for the environment are fundamental values. To a large extent, first the pandemic and then the invasion of Ukraine have broken this mirage.

This new reality full of uncertainty in the face of so much unpredictable horror reaches our psychology consultations. Most of the time implicitly.

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Lack of certainty has psychological consequences

The general restlessness with which many people come to our consultations, in part, has its origin in these events.

It is not something that belongs only to the people who visit us, it is something that impacts each one of us. And that somehow transcends us allIt is part of the environment in which we currently live.

Examples of how we experience uncertainty

Some examples of how uncertainty and war are present for me are the following:

Anabel arrives at the consultation without knowing how to define what is wrong with her, what has made you come to my space. We are reviewing the different areas of her life and in all of them, although there are aspects that can be more satisfying, there are no clear topics to start working on. She speaks of a general feeling of unease and impending disaster. Throughout the sessions we explain the aspects of his life that give him a sense of stability, the most of her, and we're exploring what it's like for her to be in a world that feels clearly unstable for the first time in her life.

Pedro has a company that he has created after years of working in his sector. The company is doing well. However, the feeling of anguish and that something horrible is going to happen and his company is going to be ruined is permanent. He comes to the office with the fear that the anxiety he feels about the operation of the company will cause him, for example, a heart attack. The reality of his enterprise is that it is highly unlikely to go bankrupt, and the reality of the broader socio-historical context is that everything can change at any moment. It is that broader context, in fact, that is marking Peter's anguish and anxiety.

For as long as he can remember, Esther you have needed to plan and organize what happens in your life. Until recently she had managed to combine these aspects of her way of being in the world with leading a life that was relatively satisfying to her. However, catastrophic thoughts have taken over her in recent times. His social relationships are almost non-existent and leaving the house is a task that he cannot perform. We meet through the internet, we explore the fearful situations he suffers and we gradually find possible meanings for each one of them.

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Coping with the lack of information

A phrase from the founding book of Gestalt Therapy (Gestalt Therapy: Arousal and growth of the human personality, by f. S. pearls; R. F. Hefferline; And p. Goodman) makes a lot of sense in this context: success comes hitting the target of reality.

When as psychotherapists we can see the suffering that each person brings us as something that, in some way, is also affecting us personally, we can better perceive that person and accompany them with greater honesty and sensitivity.

This way of accompanying is for me a way to create much-needed certainty for ourselves and others: I am and I will continue to be here with you. And, furthermore, it is one of my ways of fighting for peace. I create peace when I transmit to the other that as human beings we are going to meet and separate at the same time that we take each other into account.

key questions

How do you deal with uncertainty?

What is your way of creating peace?

How do you feel that the invasion of Ukraine is impacting your life?

The examples given in this article do not correspond to real people, although they do faithfully reflect situations that occurred in therapy sessions.