Ukraine

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There has been a considerable amount of work done in Ukraine in recent years aimed at trying to introduce a system of alternatives. The initial programme of work initiated by the Ukraine Social Investment Fund in the early part of the decade has been followed by a range of recent very positive reforms which have taken place since the Orange Revolution. Much of the recent policy reform has focussed on providing family type placements and establishing a system of social services for children and families.

However, the training is not properly established across the system of state social services. As a result, there is a wide variation in the skills and capacity of counsellors across the country (cf. Lushyn 2020).

Counselling is often combined with psychotherapy and is part of Ukraine’s health care facilities. Counselling on its own is mostly given in career counselling or in family centres, which provide a range of services to support vulnerable families.

Practical psychology and counselling in particular started to develop after the breakdown of the USSR. In 1991 the first school psychology service was founded all over Ukraine. Many of the universities opened counsellor’s preparation courses. By the end of 1990 there were 24000 practical school psychologists, although a third of them having counselling competence but still very limited practice. After the break of War with Russia many of them were re-educated and started a military career or at least a cooperation with the military.

Since the country has gone through multiple critical situations like the fall of the USSR, Chernobyl catastrophe, Afghan War, etc., counselling has been centred on the issues of transition to new personal and communal identities. Facilitation modalities are gaining popularity. “New norm” elaboration and assistance are a trend (cf. Luyshyn 2020).

Counselling is not regulated by the government. It is a new field in Ukraine and the standards are not very clear. Counsellors must not have diplomas or a certain degree to call themselves a counsellor. Only if you perform psychological counselling you must have a degree (cf. Lushyn 2020).

Counselling service is mostly administered in education, business and army-settings. But the majority of counsellors practice within an informal setting.

In educational-settings counselling is provided to help students find their own career path most of the time. It helps that students do not get frustrated or unmotivated to look for a career path they like. This kind of counselling is also provided in business-settings.

Another setting is the counselling within the Ukrainian army because of the existing conscription from the age of eighteen. Many veterans coming back from their military service end up having a Post-traumatic stress disorder, which needs to be treated by a specialist. In this setting counselling and psychotherapy are combined.

Many other counselling services are practiced within informal settings, such as local authorities and smaller NGOs.

One of the biggest trends in counselling is the career and counselling services in Ukrainian schools. In a situation where there are options for someone to choose from, one is likely to face the problem of choice. This has been a very serious problem for most people, especially students who are faced with the task of choosing a career path. Most of the students that are found in the secondary schools fall within the ages of 10 and 17 years. Henceforth this period will be dubbed ‘adolescence’. Due to the demanding nature of this period in people’s lives, many end up being unable to make the appropriate choices. The resulting emotional and vocational misalignment causes a number of problems, including dissatisfaction in work, frustration, conflicts and failure in life. To prevent people from suffering, caused by these problems, counselling is a widely spread service in Ukrainian schools (cf. Pilgu/Gaj 2016).

Counselling in Ukraine denotes a more therapeutic and personalized intervention, when in many other countries therapy and counselling are separated from each other. In Ukraine the term guidance is more commonly used, which means assisting humans in critical life courses.

Counselling contains different aspects, such as psychological, educational and medical aspects. The psychological and educational aspect is to assist clients in realizing themselves as active participants in social and cultural activities, when the medical aspect determines the physical fitness of a client.

Other Trends nowadays are Positive Psychology (Lushyn 2020), which is the scientific study of what goes right in life, from birth to death and at all stops in between. It is a newly christened approach within psychology that takes seriously as a subject matter those things that make life most worth living. Everyone’s life has peaks and valleys, and positive psychology does not deny the valleys. It assumes that life entails more than we are not frittering life away (Peterson 2006: 3ff)

For a more in-depth examination of the counselling profession in Liechtenstein, interested readers are advised to read the following articles as well as books:

• Bilson, A. (2010). The Development of gate-keeping functions in Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS: Lessons from Bulgaria, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
• Peterson, C. (2006). A primer in positive psychology. Oxford university press.
• Pilgui, N., & Gaj, A. (2016). Career’s and counselling services in Ukraine schools.