NARRATIVE-EXPOSITORY THERAPEUTIC GROUP
Tell Your Story
For anyone trying to understand what happened to him, the historical and family context in which he lived, how he learned to stay afloat, and what kind of person he became in the course of his own life story.
Take a look at the stones on the cover
In this narrative-expository work, stones represent events that were difficult to endure and hard to integrate into one’s own story. Losses. Threats. Separations. Silence. Moments after which life was divided into “before” and “after.”
Some of these stones appeared directly in your own life. Others emerged when you learned about a great-grandfather who was repressed, the Holodomor in your family, deportation, war, the loss of a home, or years of family silence.
We will not attribute your ancestors’ memories to you or make them the subject of the exhibition. We’ll work only with your own biography: how you learned about your family history, what it meant to you, and what feelings, decisions, and coping mechanisms are connected to it.
You don’t need to throw the stones away; you need to arrange them along the lines of your life so that they no longer take up the entire landscape.
13 group sessions
From working with one’s own autobiographical memory—to resilience and taking ownership of one’s life.
3 hours per week
Every Saturday, 6:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m. Kyiv time. Online.
Private group
The same lineup from the first game to the last. A closed group where you can feel safe opening up.
Hello, my name is Tetiana Stanislavska.
I am a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, a graduate student at KISPP, and the founder of the nonprofit organization “Institute of War-Related Psychological Trauma.” I have over 20 years of experience in psychological practice.
Transgenerational experience is the topic of my dissertation and one of the main areas of my clinical work. I have adapted the HITT-Q questionnaire for the Ukrainian context and developed my own therapeutic model, “Landscape—Boat—Person” (LBP).
This program is a practical extension of my research.
It combines the results of the HITT-Q, the LCHL model, the principles of narrative exposure therapy, and group writing-based exposure work.
Group A:
October (3, 10, 17, 24, 31), November (7, 14, 21, 28), December (5, 12, 19, 26).
Group В:
March (6, 13, 20, 27), April (3, 10, 17, 24), May (1, 8, 15, 22, 29).
The cost includes:
☑️ an initial individual session lasting 75–90 minutes;
☑️ completion of the HITT-Q and an individual interpretation of the results;
☑️ development of a preliminary model of psychological resilience;
☑️ 13 group sessions, each lasting three hours;
☑️ initial and final assessments of psychological resilience, well-being, and trauma symptoms.
Registration (in Ukrainian)
For adults who are dealing with issues that didn’t start with them. Not necessarily psychologists—for anyone who recognizes recurring patterns in themselves and is ready to work through them.
This is a therapeutic group for personal work. If you’re a professional looking for a method, check out the training course “5 Stages of Working with Transgenerational Trauma”.
How does it work?
Step 1.
Your starting point
Before the group session begins, you’ll fill out the HITT-Q—a questionnaire on the intergenerational transmission of historical trauma, which I’ve adapted into Ukrainian and psychometrically validated using a Ukrainian sample.
Next, we’ll have an individual meeting during which we’ll:
- discuss your concerns and current situation;
- review the HITT-Q results;
- develop a preliminary “Landscape—Boat—Person” model;
- identify events you’re ready to work through and topics that are best left untouched for now;
- conduct initial assessments of your resilience, psychological well-being, and traumatic symptoms.
The HITT-Q is not a diagnosis. Its results are not shared with the group and are not used to compare participants.
Step 2.
Landscape
“Landscape” refers to the historical, social, familial, and contemporary circumstances that shaped your life and the lives of your family.
We examine the events that have shaped you: repression, the Holodomor, wars, deportations, losses, forced resettlement, Chernobyl, occupation, the silence surrounding the past, as well as the broader historical context.
The program uses two related but distinct strands:
- the family-historical strand—what happened to your family and what you know about it;
- the personal life strand—what happened directly to you.
Your ancestors’ experiences are contextualized but do not become the subject of the exhibition. We work with your own experience of discovering, coming to terms with, and living through your history.
Step 3.
Boat
“The Boat” is a family system in which not only fear, silence, or heightened responsibility were passed down, but also ways of surviving.
We are exploring:
- how the family reacted to danger;
- what they talked about and what they kept silent about;
- how they sought support;
- how they coped with loss;
- who took on responsibility;
- what helped them adapt;
- and what values, connections, and skills were passed down to subsequent generations.
We’re not breaking the boat that once saved the family. Instead, we’re figuring out how it “behaved” in that landscape.
Step 4.
Person
A “person” is not the sum of family traumas, nor is it a passive vessel for someone else’s history. It is you: with your own life story, body, memory, values, reactions, decisions, and the ability to create new meanings.
At this stage, we learn to distinguish between:
- an event and a reaction to it;
- a reaction and a coping strategy;
- a strategy and its current consequences;
- a family rule and our own choice;
- an inherited meaning and our own personal interpretation.
Step 5.
Tell your story
The program will feature three group exhibition modules.
They are organized as group activities: participants are given the same assignments and work on them simultaneously. However, the actual exhibition component remains an individual effort.
You will learn the details directly during the course.
Step 6.
Resilience
A traumatic event is part of one’s history, but it should not become the whole story.
In the final stage, we return to the resources and examine how perceptions of the Landscape, the Boat, and the Person have changed.
At the end, we conduct follow-up assessments of psychological resilience, well-being, and traumatic symptoms.
Attention! Group therapy can wait if you’re currently in the midst of an acute crisis or in an unstable state—it’s important to stabilize yourself first. Group therapy is safe only when you have the resources to handle it. Please take care of yourself—that’s the most important thing.
What will you take with you?
Awareness. And change.
You will see the system in which you have lived your life, and you will understand what in it belongs to you and what you have carried on behalf of others. You will return to your lineage what belongs to it.
You will encounter your vulnerable side, but no longer alone—rather, within a circle that supports you.
You’ll give yourself the right to live by different rules than the ones you inherited.
Profound changes don’t happen in three months—I’m not promising that. But seeing clearly the system in which you’ve lived your whole life and stopping carrying the burdens of others—that will be the beginning of your true self.
We are open to collaboration
Corporate training: programs for psychological services, medical facilities, and military organizations. University partnerships: integration of programs into curricula. Supervision and consulting: for organizations working with trauma.
We have been working throughout the war — and we will continue to do so afterward.
Join us.
For inquiries regarding cooperation:
war.trauma.institute@gmail.com
+380 68 95 92 911
About mental health during and after the war (in Ukrainian, but you can use Telegram’s translator):