Report of the psychologists that were working with Georgian Friends
The Quakers in Georgia have been working with psychologists to help alleviate the suffering of some of the refugees there. You can see some pictures here of the psychiatrists working in Georgia.
We recently recieved this report from the Georgian Friends on their progress:
The psychological rehabilitation work was provided for the refugees from South Ossetia living in 4 collective centres (shelters) in Tbilisi and 4 collective centres (shelters) in Rustavi.
The project continued for 4 months in Rustavi and 4 months in Tbilisi. It continued for 1 month in each collective centre. The psychological rehabilitation assistance was provided for both adults and children. Those refugees who needed essential medication for calming, received it from our psychologists. The psychological rehabilitation assistance was provided in groups and individually.
Psychologists tried to work individually with those refugees, who needed more help and attention.
Life had lost sense for many refugees. Working with them, psychologists tried to take them out of that situation.
One of the aims of the psychologists was to teach methods of coming out of stress and overcoming emotional crisis. Psychologists tried to explain to refugees, that they should not have only negative thoughts and therefore lose interest in life. They should look into the future with enthusiasm.
There were not very many refugees with deep depression, though many of them had different psychological and psychiatric problems. Any crisis causes a stress. In spite of that, the stage of the first psychological shock has passed, though most of them had in their memory all of the troubles which they had to overcome during the conflict
From the beginning of the work, psychologists were learning the psychological condition of refugees with the help of special tests. The Lusher coloured test was used to learn the emotional condition of children. Both psychologists worked with children of different ages, though most of them were from 6 to 12 years old.
Children where given the possibility of drawing pictures. Through the pictures they could express their emotions .In the first days, they were drawing pictures in dark colors and there were many pictures of war. Later the colors changed to brighter and pictures became more peaceful.
There were some children, who could not adapt to the new living conditions and had serious stress. They were given more attention and the psychologist worked with them and their parents individually.
Our psychologists did psychological rehabilitation work for refugees and gave psychological relief to many refugees. That way, we saved many lives from psychological traumatising.
The project was very successful. We helped many people.