TRANSFORMATION OF PERSONAL IDENTITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT OF MILITARY SERVICEMEN AT THE STAGES OF LIMB AMPUTATION AND PROSTHESIS

Abstract

The scientific article reveals the peculiarities of the functioning of the psyche of a serviceman at different stages of limb amputation. It has been established that amputation, causing significant changes in the daily life of a serviceman, generates in him a state of self-isolation, despair, depression, nervousness, anxiety, lowers self-esteem and pushes him to recognize his own powerlessness. It has been found that while waiting for the operation to amputation of a limb, a serviceman experiences a crisis of corporeality, which is expressed in deep emotional shock, which often develops into a state of "psychological death" of the former "I" and can give rise to PTSD. It was found that the thoughts of a serviceman who is awaiting amputation of a limb are quite colorful, ambivalent, and devastatingly symbolic. By the nature of their course, they are identified with the classical stages of grief.
The psychological features of interaction with a serviceman at different stages of his preparation for surgery and in the postoperative period are established. It is outlined that at each of the stages he should be maximally involved in making various kinds of decisions in order to regain a sense of control over his own life.
On the pages of the article, important attention is paid to the algorithm of working with the environment of a serviceman who is undergoing amputation of a limb. It is shown that communication with a soldier who is awaiting amputation of a limb should be filled with specifics as opposed to various kinds of abstractions. An important aspect is the disclosure by the authors of the article of the idea that those individuals who, having lost a limb, in particular a hand, begin to think with their whole body and words, adapt best to the surrounding world. Under such conditions, bodily thought becomes the regulator of their actions.
It has been established that at the postoperative stage of rehabilitation in servicemen, two ambivalent states dominate: mental numbness and initial adaptation to a new physicality. The main mental reactions that accompany the life of a serviceman after amputation are revealed. Among them are emotional numbness, disorientation, phantom pain. The thoughts of a serviceman during this period of life are filled with tragic dramatization, and the state of emotional shock develops into prolonged anxiety, which is significantly intensified by existential uncertainty, round-the-clock reflections, insomnia and negative expectations. An amputated limb is often perceived as a loss of independence.