WORKING OUT COLLECTIVE TRAUMA: ODESSA RESIDENTS’ REPRESENTATIONS A YEAR LATER THE TRAGEDY

Abstract

The research deals with a problem of psychological content and structure of the Odessa residents’ ideas of their working out collective trauma caused by the tragic events of May 2, 2014. A theoretical basis of the research was formed by the following principles: the attitudes to the crisis (T. Tytarenko), the styles of coping-defensive behavior (E. Isaeva), the factors of severity of the collective trauma effects (P. Hornostai), the influence of the negative life events comprehension on people’s adaptation (J. Updegraff and others), the role of rational thinking in the evaluation of complex negative events (M. Lewicka). A year later the tragedy 40 respondents were asked by the standardized interview procedure. Its data were examined by content and cluster analysis. It was established that the most respondents focused on uncertainty and ambiguity of the events, their causes and course analyses, severe emotional distress, culprits of the tragedy, an authority responsibility, and a reputation of the city. The data obtained was proposed to be evaluated by two scales. The first scale’s poles were emotional experience and intellectual comprehension, the second one’s — psychological defense and coping behavior. The combination of these scales provided four types of assessments and interpretations of the incurred collective trauma. They were: defensive experience, defensive comprehension, coping experience, and coping comprehension.