On November 12, 2025, National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” became a centre of psychological recovery and creative search: the first session of the cycle “PsychoArt: Mental Health Through Creativity” took place in room 315 C. The organisers and facilitators of the training were candidate of pedagogical sciences, associate professor of the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy, Maryna Teslenko and practical psychologist Olena Kryvenko, who created an atmosphere of complete trust, warmth, and inspiration in the classroom. This event marked the start of a large-scale series of art-therapeutic intensives explicitly developed for student youth, with priority attention to those who need exceptional support – internally displaced persons, children of combatants, orphans, and students experiencing difficult life circumstances.
The art therapy training was based on a deep psychological approach, in which art is not an end in itself but a gentle and effective instrument of healing. Each such event is designed as a space of psychological safety and unconditional acceptance. Here, young people have the opportunity to get to know themselves better, learn to identify and constructively express suppressed emotions, and develop emotional self-care skills. Through creative metaphor, participants can live through complex traumatic experiences, restore trust in the surrounding world, and step by step build an internal support system, feeling heard and important.
The practical part of the training began with a symbolic introduction using the projective exercise “The Image That Speaks About Me”. Participants were offered the opportunity to work with a drawing saturated with various characters, each of which conveyed a specific emotion or action. The task was to find the hero who “resonates” with the student’s actual internal state in the “here and now” moment. Such a psychological technique allowed for activating imagination and bypassing the psyche’s defence mechanisms: even those who usually find it difficult to verbalise their feelings were able to open up through the safe story of the chosen character, gently integrating into the group space.
Immersion into one’s own inner world continued during the execution of the meeting’s central technique – “The Image of My Mental Health”. This was not just an artistic practice, but serious reflective work: amid relaxation music and guided visualisation, each participant was able to embody, on paper, a unique metaphor of their psychological well-being. The created drawings became a kind of message from the unconscious, illuminating hidden needs, internal conflicts, and, most importantly, resources for restoring balance. This allowed speaking about complex things in the simple language of images, with deep respect for one’s own experience.
A part of the event dedicated to fairy tale therapy using the metaphorical associative cards “Grandfather’s Tales” had a special therapeutic effect. Within this practice, each student could see themselves as a Hero who overcomes obstacles, finds allies, and receives “magical” tools to solve problems. The fairy tale became a living model of the life path, where trials become strength and imagination opens new horizons. The meeting concluded with a warm reflection: participants shared insights and impressions, passing a soft toy talisman in a circle, symbolising the community’s unity.
Such meetings are more than just art classes; they are a powerful tool for caring for youth’s mental health, helping them find new meanings and their own place in the world.
The event was held as part of the international, large-scale EU-funded Erasmus+ KA220-ADU project “TRUST” – Trauma of refugees in Europe: An approach through art therapy as a solidarity program for Ukraine war victims (Grant No. 2024-BE01-KA220-ADU-000257527).
The project title is decoded as follows:
TRUST
T – Trauma
R – Refugees
U – Ukraine
S – Solidarity
T – Therapy
The project is co-funded by the EU and led by the Centre Neuro Psychiatrique St-Martin from Belgium, in partnership with the National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” (Ukraine), Greek Carers Network EPIONI (Greece), Fondazione Don Luigi Di Liegro (Italy), Lekama Foundation (Luxembourg), EuroPlural Project (Portugal).
We express our sincere gratitude to our partners for their invaluable support, which makes it possible to implement such vitally important initiatives that bring the light of hope and healing to those who need it most.
It is worth noting that Poltava Polytechnic lecturers are eligible to participate in academic mobility and internship programs. Students can study abroad through Erasmus+ credit academic mobility grant programs for a semester or a full academic year at leading universities in Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greenland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, and the Czech Republic.
For more detailed information regarding current internship, teaching, and academic mobility programs abroad, please get in touch with the International Relations Department (office 213-C, interoffice@nupp.edu.ua) or the International Relations Coordinator of the National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” – Ph.D. in Philology, Associate Professor of the Department of Germanic Philology and Translation, Anna Pavelieva (email: kunsite.zi@gmail.com, phone: +38-(095)-91-08-192).
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National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”
