Oleksii Geliukh is a specialist of the Aurora online platform, a psychologist, psychotherapist, member of the All-Ukrainian Union of Psychologists Practicing the Gestalt Approach, member of the Association of EMDR Therapists in Ukraine, and a two-time IDP.
He has been in the profession for 23 years, and since 2014 she has been helping adults and children affected by the war in Ukraine. He has additional training as a trauma therapist and provides psychological support to people who have experienced violence in any form.
How did you get into the profession?
I did not choose my profession, the profession chose me. Initially, I planned to study at the Faculty of Economics, but it so happened that we simply withdrew our documents from the university. The next higher education institution was a pedagogical one. When I started preparing for admission again and an experimental group was opened at the Taras Shevchenko National Pedagogical University in Luhansk, it was the first time that the institution began to train psychologists without additional specialization as a teacher. I decided to try it, and since then I have been in the profession for 24 years.
All this time I have been developing. Now I am studying the Gestalt approach and, at the same time, the EMDR approach.
I like Gestalt because it teaches you to accept yourself as bad. Sometimes a person comes to me and says: I am convinced that I am a bad parent (mother, son, daughter). Other methods may start with working through the thought: "No, you are a good parent!" And the Gestalt therapist will ask: "How does it feel to be a bad parent?" And begins to build resilience in a place where others manipulate. The hardest thing is to accept yourself as you are and live with confidence.
That's why learning to stay in the status of bad is also good, because it allows a person to be themselves.
But I chose EDMR to work with trauma. However, it is great when there is a collaboration of methods where it is needed.
How long ago did you start working with survivors of conflict-related sexual violence?
During my first year of practice, I worked in a specialized educational institution for children with psychoneurological diseases. It was a kindergarten and an elementary school. There were children in the fourth grade who were of an age where they could already receive passports.
I came as a student and one of the pupils had her eye on me. She tried to press me somewhere, to do something. I realized that this was harassment and began to study the psychology of this phenomenon, to be interested in why it was happening.
As for my first clients, I started working with this topic when the war broke out nine years ago. It so happened that my parents and sister and their family had been living on the demarcation line, near the Siverskyi Donets River, since 2014. And while living there, I worked with girls who told me that they had been "delivered" to checkpoints or told me about cases of rape.
What is the most difficult thing for you about working with the topic of conflict-related sexual violence?
I am working with a case where a girl survived a gang rape last November. It was committed by enemy soldiers near Donetsk in the non-government controlled area. Conflict-related sexual violence is a war crime and is a separate type of weapon. She contacted me while she was still in the non-government controlled area. We communicated on social media, and sometimes we managed to talk online, although without video. I was very happy when she wrote that she had left there for the territory controlled by Ukraine. We scheduled a session and met online. She was finally safe. But later she wrote that she had returned because her mother was ill. This reality is very difficult to accept, because you plunge into powerlessness. And it is even harder to accept yourself in powerlessness.
What was the first time you worked with a survivor of conflict-related sexual violence?
It was difficult. The most difficult thing was that I told the woman that it was sexual violence that had happened to her. She came to me with a feeling of shame and guilt, and could not talk about what exactly happened to her.
When we work with clients, we must not judge the person, their actions and thoughts. Of course, after that, I, as a specialist, go for supervision or to my own therapist to cope with the experiences that I go through. Sometimes you think: "God, does someone's picture of the world consider violence normal?" Sometimes it's hard after a session because what you hear differs from your ideas and values. And the impunity of the offenders is also depressing. But I constantly remind myself what I can influence and make every effort to make it work and help the survivors.
What is the most important thing in working with survivors of conflict-related sexual violence?
Creating a safe space between the professional and the survivor. And this applies not only to a psychotherapist or psychologist, but to any professional.
It is also important to accept a person as they are, not to give them judgment. To create a space without shame and guilt. I immediately tell my clients that I accept them and their experience and will support them no matter what. No matter how terrible or shocking the experience is. It is also important to tell the person: "You can lean on me. You have me, I will not disappear."
At the online psychotherapeutic support platform Aurora, I am currently the only male therapist, and many women are shocked that they can come to a man for support, for warmth, and not "pay with sex." It is unusual for them that there is no sexual connotation. Because often in our mentality there is a prejudice that if a man gives me something, I have to pay him. But I don't need anything, I don't need to repay anything. Some women say directly: "This is the first time I've experienced the fact that you can get warm, get support, communicate, and not feel sexualized in communication."
Therefore, it is very important to learn how to build boundaries, to answer confidently and without hesitation: "You invited me for coffee, but it was your need to treat me to coffee. I don't owe you anything in return and I shouldn't have to pay for it with sex."
In addition, if a woman has lived with an abuser for some time, for example, her brain has formed certain patterns of behavior and perception of men, and she will be afraid to start a relationship with a warm, caring man. She will feel that she does not know how to behave with him. He is a stranger to her. It is easier for her to start a relationship with a man like the previous one, because she knows what to do and how to act around him. And when a psychologist, psychotherapist, social specialist is a man and he is caring, accepts a woman, becomes her support, it is safe to develop new behavioral patterns with him. And in real life, such a man will not scare her.
How does the life of a survivor of conflict-related sexual violence change if they seek help?
First, they are not afraid to talk about it. And one of the signs that trauma is integrated is that a person can talk about their experience. And without fear or anger. They can talk about what they experienced with sadness and even cry, but this experience will already be integrated.
My clients, for example, told their partners about their experiences. And they were surprised because their partners supported them. They talked about it without shame or guilt. They simply said: "I have this experience in my life. I would like it to be gone, but unfortunately, it is."
Therapy improves the quality of life. A person builds a support for future challenges.
For example, there was a situation when one of our clients went abroad during a full-scale war and was offered a job cleaning the house of a single man. She was very afraid to go there because of her past experience of rape. And we worked through this fear. She was able to tell the man in whose house she now lives that she was afraid to go to work for a stranger. The man was understanding and replied: "I know him well. He is safe. But if you're scared, I'm ready to go with you." They met, and some of the actions of her future employer scared her. She turned to me again, we worked through her fear again, and it turned out that this man was afraid of her himself. It was also a new experience for him. He was used to living alone. Now she says: "We communicate, we can have coffee together." That is, working with a specialist allows you to work through your fears.
Her sex life is improving. When the trauma is worked through, the trigger stops working. Because if there is shame in sexual life, then there is essentially no sexual life. It is very difficult to have fun where you control yourself. Where there is control, the excitement disappears.
Metaphorically speaking, people or children who have been abused are birds with broken wings. We help them either heal their wings or grow new ones.
What motivates you to work with this complex topic?
The changes that take place in people. I really am happy when a client, for example, writes to me that she is happy in a new relationship. Another client tells me that she integrates experiences in her dreams.
One of my colleagues said: "The greatest value in the work of a psychologist or psychotherapist is when a client says, 'I did it or I did it myself'. And it's great when a person can spread their wings.
I also get a thrill when I receive feedback on how the lives of clients are changing. I have worked with raped boys and men and I remember the words of one of them after our work: "I realized that I was washing myself in the shower to wash away what I had experienced." Now he no longer has this need because he was able to cope with this experience.
When you see that people can move on with their lives, it gives you strength to work.
Trauma cannot be cured, it can only be integrated. And this requires work. They say time heals, but no, we need time to heal ourselves. It does not heal, but we heal ourselves with the support of specialists.
Were there any stories that changed you?
We learn a lot from our clients. For example, how to change your own life dramatically.
They also teach you to listen to yourself. If you understand that you have feelings, but they are not the client's feelings, but yours, it means that you are involved in the process with your own unprocessed experiences. You can't be therapizing yourself or working with your own traumas in the area of contact with the client. You have to work with the client. This is what the job also teaches you.
But in addition to learning, there is also a great admiration for how strong the people who managed to escape are. Sometimes they don't even realize how strong they are.
To get a consultation with Oleksii Gelyukh, please use the Aurora online platform. Free, anonymous, confidential.
The Aurora online platform was created by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, with the assistance of the Office of the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine and the Government Commissioner for Gender Policy, and with the support of the UK Government. Aurora is one of the links in the system of assistance to survivors of conflict-related violence, including sexual violence.
