equine therapy “helps us to forget, to clear our minds”, confides a soldier victim of post-traumatic stress

Each war has its share of dead, wounded but also of soldiers traumatized by the fighting. In a post-Soviet country like Ukraine, where psychiatric hospitals have for decades been likened to political prison camps, there is no tradition of psychological care. It is therefore very complicated to treat mental ailments and in particular post-traumatic syndrome which affects many soldiers returning from the front. Since December 2023, the Spirit association has been offering soldiers on leave to come and talk, in contact with animals and in particular horses. Equitherapy allows them to regain a taste for life before returning to fight. franceinfo went to one of the equestrian centers in the suburbs of kyiv.

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Soldiers suffer from insomnia and anxiety

The faces are closed, the soldiers are smoking. The fights are over 600 kilometers away, but words struggle to come out. “In war as in war… says Tseri who spent more than nine months in the trenches, towards Kharkiv, then in the Donbass. There are always hits. You are tense, you await the assaults. You are always vigilant so that you can stay alive. I don’t want to talk regarding it… It’s hard and stressful.” The soldier has been on leave for a few weeks. He says : “A bit like all the guys here, we suffer from insomnia. And when you fall asleep, at the slightest noise, you wake up with a start. And immediately, you look at what happened.”

The cigarette break is over. The session begins in the arena with a brief discussion with a psychologist. And then, very quickly, the animals come out: dogs, cats and three horses. The soldiers go up one following the other and above all, they have fun. At one point in the session, everyone even burst out laughing. “It’s the cat Machka who took the place of one of our soldiers, it makes us laugh”, explains Igor, the battalion commander. It was he who pushed these men to come and attend the center’s sessions. “In the army there are ordinary guys, workers, managers, teachers, businessmen … They are not Rambosdescribes Igor. When we’re together, we only talk regarding war and we can’t get out of it.”

“It’s hard for most of us to come home. It feels like no one in the back understands us. This therapy helps us to forget, to clear our minds. C It’s a problem today, but it will be worse following the war.”

Igor, commander of a battalion of Ukrainian soldiers

franceinfo

Igor, the commander of a battalion of Ukrainian soldiers who encouraged his men to come for therapy at the Spirit association’s equitherapy center in the suburbs of kyiv. (THIBAULT LEFEVRE / RADIO FRANCE)

The session ends with a new discussion led by the psychologist Olga. Masks fall off, and it’s thanks to animals, she says, who communicate by instinct and allow soldiers to let go.